
Qass____ 
BookJE 






«*^e^ 



AN 



ANSWER 



THE PAMPHLET OF MR. JOHN A. LOWELL, 



ENTITLED 
jl 
f 

jl) "reply to a pamphlet recently circulated by 

Ip MR. EDWARD BROOKS. 



NEW FACTS AND FURTHER PROOFS, 
1 \ 



BY 

ED WAED BROOKS 



BOSTON: 

185 1. 

EASTBURN'S PRESS. 






/>//SS/ 



C 



PREFACE 



The question will naturally be asked, Why does this book come 
out at so late a day, and in Mr. Lowell's absence ? 

His pamphlet made its appearance about three years since. It 
contained statements, very surprising to me, for their boldness, 
and the entire want of proof to support them. It seemed, that 
their author was content to rely, mainly, on personal credit and 
standing in society. 

I had made some little progress in preparing such an answer as 
I thought suitable, when it struck me, that some of the points, on 
which I had been unexpectedly contradicted, were, perhaps, capa- 
ble, on diligent search, of being set at rest, with all inteUigent and 
unprejudiced persons, by positive evidence, independently of that 
which was in Mr. Lowell's possession, and inaccessible to me. 
There were other points, too, on which I noted a great reserve, in 
the " Reply," respecting material facts, intimately known to Mr. 
Lowell, but of which I had no positive information. These con- 
siderations determined me not to be hasty, in writing, before I 
had ascertained what facts could be estabhshed beyond question. 
One inquiry suggested another ; and the sort of investigation, to 
which I was subjected, proved to be a work of more time and 
labour than I, at first, anticipated. 



L_ 



IV 



The protracted illness of a member of my immediate family, and 
its fatal termination, the subsequent death of my father, and new 
duties, of a pressing character, which thereby fell upon me, and other 
circumstances, not interesting to the reader, occasioned long inter- 
ruptions to my unwelcome task. My inquiries, however, pursued 
at intervals, led to some unexpected discoveries, suggesting both 
further inquiry and greater caution in forming conclusions. Pest- 
le ponement, thus far, was not to be regretted ; since, had I written 
earlier, I must have written in ignorance of some important facts, 
tending to account, in my own mind at least, for a course of con- 
duct, on the part of Mr. Lowell, which had before seemed inex- 
plicable. 

A greater cause of delay, than any I have yet mentioned, I 
have found to be incident to the business of carrying through the 
press, with needful revision, such a book as this had gradually 
become. The tardiness of typography has greatly exceeded 
my expectations. Nearly two years ago, my answer had been, 
mainly, prepared. It is more than a year, since it was not only 
completed, but, about three hundred pages had been actually 
struck off, and a considerable further portion was in type, under- 
going correction. 

It was in this stage of progress, that I received positive inform- 
ation, that Mr. Lowell was proposing to embark for Europe, early 
in the following April. I did not doubt that he was well enough 
aware, that my answer to his pamphlet was in the press ; but I 
did not choose that there should be any room for doubt upon that 
point in the minds of others, lest I might subject myself to the 
imputation of purposely seeking the opportunity of his absence, to 
put forth, unexpectedly, a printed statement concerning him. The 
only question was, as to the time, form, and manner, of giving him 
notice, in consequence of my having heard that he was not in 
good health. 

Under these (Circumstances, the course, I concluded to take, 



was, to place so much of the book, as was then printed, m the 
hands of two of his most intimate friends, with liberty to read it 
themselves, and then, if they should think proper, to deliver it to 
Mr. Lowell, for his private perusal, with notice that I intended to 
proceed in its completion, as fast as circumstances would permit. 
The residue, in manuscript, I did not think proper to put out of 
my own hands. It lay in an illegible shape, calculated only for 
the printer's use, and might undergo material modification and 
amendment, as the work advanced. 

I, accordhagly, sent to those gentlemen all the pages, which had 
then been struck off, and proposed to send them, in a few days, 
about one hundred pages more, in proof sheets, if Mr. Lowell con- 
cluded to see them. 

The friends of Mr. Lowell decided to communicate to him my 
offer of these portions. I was informed that they did so in the 
latter part of February, 1850 ; and that he, " unhesitatingly, de- 
clined receiving any fragmentary part of the intended publica- 
tion,"— assigning as his reasons, that " the portion, not submit- 
ted, might contain other charges, and perhaps of more importance, 
than those sent;" that he had ''already postponed his visit to 
Europe a full year, under the continued threat of such publica- 
tion, that he wight he here to receive and answer it ;" and that, 
" his passage having been taken, and his arrangements all made, 
or in a state of forwardness, he could wait no longer for that 
purpose," 

He, accordingly, sailed for Europe at the appointed time. A 
year has since elapsed, and he has not returned. The work of 
the printer has in the mean time gone on, not so fast as I desired, 
but as fast, he assures me, as its nature and his preparations' 
would permit ; and this volume is now ready to be issued. 

If Mr. Lowell, after direct notice, preferred, or thought himself 
obliged, to leave it behind him, that was a matter, over which I 
had no control. I presume I did m.ore than any rule of courtesy, 



VI 



in a personal controversy, requires, when I tendered to him the 
advantage of seeing, before he went, and" before it was seen bj 
others, all that was then in a state fit to be inspected. He will, 
besides, have opportunity, now, of seeing the whole, abroad, with- 
in a fortnight of the time of its appearance here. I presume it 
will hardly be expected, under these circumstances, that I should 
await the leisure of his return from an indefinite absence, which 
he can terminate at pleasure. 

In respect to his reasons for refusing to look at a " fragmentary 
part," or for not being now " here, to receive and answer it," they 
were for him to judge of; and I have no remark to make upon 
them, except to say, that I never uttered any threats on this 
subject, but have proceeded, from the first, quietly and steadily, 
in preparing and printing my answer to a very ingenious and 
plausible pamphlet, and have stated, uniformly, to my friends, 
when asked, my intention of doing so. 

There have been reports, from time to time, that, from various 
alleged causes, I had abandoned this idea. My friends may rest 
assured, that every one of these stories was entirely destitute of 
foundation. I never had but one opinion, or intention, on the 
subject. 

Some friends, I know, have doubted the propriety, or ne- 
cessity, of my original movement, in making the printed state- 
ment, which occasioned the " Reply." That step was sanctioned, 
however, by other friends, whose good judgement I esteem, and 
certainly would not have been taken by me without a conviction, 
that I could not rest in silence, with safety to my own reputation. 
Perhaps those, who doubted, formerly, will view the question difier- 
ently, on reading these pages. However that may be, I think 
all must agree, that, having judged and acted as I did, then^ 
whether wisely or not, and having been met by such a " counter- 
blast," as that of Mr. Lowell, I have no alternative, qioio^ but 
either to answer it satisfactorily, or to admit the unanswerable 
truth of a very gross and false libeL 



VII 



Having frequent occasion, in the following pages, to advert to 
the statements of my former pamphlet, and to Mr. Lowell's com- 
ments upon them, I have been careful to do so by reference to 
book and page, (distinguishing my pamphlet by the letter B. and 
Mr. Lowell's by the letter L.) so that the reader may verify my 
steps, if he will. Indeed, I have done more. My extracts from 
the "Reply" are so numerous, that a great part of it will be 
found transferred to these pages, — which is the more important 
because of the time which has elapsed. I wish to leave no cause 
for complaint, that ample justice is not done to Mr. Lowell, so far 
as justice may consist in exhibiting his own statements, in their 
own language and colouring. 

I have taken care, too, to introduce, — generally at full length, — 
always in the material parts, — the language of letters and papers, 
printed in evidence against me, when I remark upon them. And 
when I rely, myself, on written evidence, I either print the doc- 
ument at large, or refer to the place where it may be found. 

This printing of former statements on each side, and of evidence 
in extenso, adds much to the number of my pages ; and I should 
apologize for the great length, to which they have run, if I were 
writing for the entertainment of the public. But, in a private 
personal controversy of this nature, which nobody is bound to 
read, and which is intended only to satisfy those friends of either 
party who may be wilHng to take the trouble to inform themselves 
of the truth, I have thought fairness and completeness more im- 
portant than brevity. 

It will be seen that there is, after all, one branch of this sub- 
ject, upon which I have found it impossible to crowd the proofs 
into this volume, large as it is. For reasons stated, I reserve 
them for a supplement. 

Those persons, who may be alarmed by the quantity of matter 
thus set before them, may, if they please, obtain a summary view 
of what I consider to be proved, and of what I consider remain- 



vin 



ing to be proved, by reading the two last chapters. In respect to 
what I claim to have proved, thej may turn to the evidence on 
any particular point, by the references, there made, to prior chap- 
ters, relating to the several subjects discussed. A complete 
view of the case, however, will hardly be obtained at less pains 
than by reading the book. 

Errors, either of the press, or of my own, I could not hope, per- 
haps, wholly to escape, in a volume of this bulk, though great care 
has been taken to avoid them. Those which have been discovered 

are noted below. 

EDWARD BROOKS. 

Boston, May, 1851. 



ERRATA. 

Page ]1, line 33, for " May," read March. 

" 55, " 31, for " Francis," read Frances. 

" 229, " 36, for " oberservation," read observation. 

" 268, " 14, for "account of 1811, "read account of 1818. 

" 380, note,t line 3, for " no-," read not. 

" " " " 4-5, for " Bostton," read Boston. 

" 421, line 20, after " Lyman & Ralston," strike out the comma, and insert a period. 

" 443, " 18, after " year," strike out the comma, and insert a period. 

" 450, " 24, for " adopt-," read adopted. 

" 492, Heading of Ch. 49, strike out "Mr. Kirk Boott's letter of 1626, and the com- 
ments UPON IT," which belong to Ch. 50. 

" 523, line 1, for "published," read printed. 

" 576, " 13, after "also," inseri the mark of a parenthesis. 

<' 582, " 15, for " gain," read gains. 

- " 588, " 17, add " in which year Mrs. Lyman also removed there." 

" 619, " 20, after " payments," strike out the semicolon, 

" 715, " 38, for " ntended," read " intended." 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



Page. 
CHAPTER 1. Style and tone op the "Reply." Outline of 

FACTS, WHICH LED TO MY FORMER STATEMENT. . - - 1 

Remarks on style, &c. Extensive circulation, .... 1-4 
Pretence that my controversy is not with L. but with the late 

J. W. B. 5-6 

Outline of facts, 6-12 

CHAPTER 2. Justification of my former printed statement. 13 

No other effectual form of redress, 13-16 

J. W. B.'s management as executor, a fandamental question, - 16-18 

L. the real aggressor, who brings this into controversy, - - - 18-22 

My charges against J. W. B. misrepresented, .... 22-4 

CHAPTER 3. A limited publication my last resort. A sin- 
gular mistake by MR. LOWELL. 25 

Misstatement of facts and motives, 25-6 

Letter of Messrs. Gardiner and Bartlett, March 31, 1848, - - 26-31 

Remarks on L.'s singular mistake, 31-6 

CHAPTER 4. My letter to Mr. Wells. 36 

Mistake in my copy, — how it arose, — its extent, ... - 36-40 

L.'s exaggeration of it. No proof of general inaccuracy, - - 40-2 

CHAPTER 5. The Lyman & Ralston settlement. ... 43 

Immateriality of my alleged errors, 43-9 

Letter from S. Nicolson, May 12, 1848, - - - . . 49-50 

L.'s exaggerations and misstatements, 50-1 

CHAPTER 6. My supposed mistake about compound inter- 
est. A series of strange mistakes by Mr. Lowell. - 52 
L.'s letter of Oct. 21, 1834, confirms my statement, generally, - 52-4 

The only mistakes are his, not mine, 54-5 

Letterfrom John S. Tyler, August 31, 1848, .... 55-8 

L. misunderstands his own letter, 59-61 

CHAPTER 7. Mr. Lowell's mode of treating witnesses. 
Mr. William Boott. Mrs. Mary Lyman. Both unjustly 

attacked. '-...- 62 

W. B. falsely held out as responsible for my pamphlet, - - 62-5 

So, of Mrs. Lyman,— ill treatment of her, 65-9 

The controversy is between me and L. exclusively, ... 69 

B 



CHAPTER 8. Synopsis of Mr. Lowell's argument. Our 

CORRESPONDENCE. 

Synopsis, ... 

My former complaints against L. 

Substance of our correspondence, misstated by L. 

The point of my inquiries evaded, in that correspondence, 

CHAPTER 9. Completeness of mt proof respecting the sub- 
stance OF Mr. Lowell's testimony at the inquest. 

CHAPTER 10. Mr. Lowell's charge against me of tamper- 
ing WITH THE witnesses. 

CHAPTER 11. How Dr. Putnam came to be upon the jury. 

No ATTACK made BY ME ON Dr. PuTNAM. .... 

CHAPTER 12. Mr. Lowell's charge of unfairness in the 



examination of the jurors. 
L.'s mistakes on that subject, ... 
His pretences, to account for their statements, 
Letter from John Phelps Putnam, April 26, 1848, 



CHAPTER 13. Mr. Lowell's witnesses. 

Suppression of a part of " the coroner's statement," 
Dr. Putnam and Mr. K. Boott, not unprejudiced, - 

CHAPTER 14. Summary of all the evidence respecting 
Mr. Lowell's testimony at the inquest. .... 
No substantial contradiction of the jurors, unless by L. himself, 

CHAPTER 15. Outline of my former statements respect- 
ing THE ACCOUNTS. 



CHAPTER 16. Mr. Lowell's proof of Mr. Boott's good man- 
agement. His pretence that I have no right to ques- 
tion THE account. 

The proof cited is foreign to the issue, 

Does not prove the fact it is cited for, ------ 

L.'s misapplication of one of my letters, 

The probate decree set up as a bar, 

Pretence of no compromise, 

Letter from Judge Warren, Dec. 19, 1844, and remarks, 

CHAPTER 17. The account. Its extreme generality. Want 
OF books and vouchers. -.-.-.- 

Account stated and analyzed, 

Its generality and looseness, - 

Want of books and vouchers, is evidence of mismanagement, 

CHAPTER 18. The account. Mr. Lowell's discovery that 
IT claims only $3700, instead of $25,000. - 

Literal meaning of the account, 

A mere form to provide for L.'s debt, concealing the fact, 

Proofs that it claims $25,000 as a debt of the estate, 

My error in supposing balance to arise from overpayment, 



Pags. 

69 

69-70 

70-3 

73-4 

73-5 



76-85 



85-9 

89-91 
91-4 



94 

94-100 

100-2 

102 

103 
103-5 
105-8 



108 
108-19 



120-9 



129 
129-30 
130-3 
133-4 
134-7 
137-8 
139-42 



142 

142-6 

146-8 

148-54 



154 

154-7 

157-8 

158-62 

162-3 



XI 

Paob. 

L.'s misrepresentation of its consequences, 163-6 

Alleged private interest of J. W. B, the only substantial question, 166 

CHAPTER 19. The account. The pretence of an equal dis- 

TKiBUTioN OF $90,000. Case of the minors. - - - 166 

Partial misappropriation admitted by L. 166-7 

Will of Mr. Boott, senior, contemplates general maintenance of 

minors by the mother, and provides for interest on their shares, 168-70 

Why does not L. produce the evidence of $10,000 paid in full'? • 170-2 

CHAPTER 20. The account. Illustrations of the inequal- 
ity OF distribution. Case of Mr. William Boott. - 173 
Cases of Mrs. Brooks and Mrs. Lyman compared, - - - 173 

L.'s misstatements as to W. B. 173-8 

His patrimony not chargeable for travelling expenses during mi- 
nority, 178-83 

J. W. B. told him that his share was $20,000, .... 183-5 

Charge of contriving unfounded aspersions, answered, - - - 185-7 

Injustice of attack on W. B. 187-91 

CHAPTER 21. The main question of the account. Mr. 
Boott's memorandum of 1830. Its verity proved by the 

"Reply." 191 

Balance not affected by the release of 1833, - - - - - 191-3 

The question. On whom is the burden 1 193-7 

J. W. B.'s memorandum of 1830, as explained, - - - - 198 

Proved by the " Reply," and not by my "reminiscences," - - 199-205 

CHAPTER 22. Mb. Boott's debts. His liability fob debts 

CONTRACTED IN THE NAME OF LyMAN & RaLSTON. - - 205 

My statement of debts admitted, except for $50,000 in name 

ofL. &R. 205-7 

The question of partnership, on which that debt depends, - - 207-1 1 

K. B.'s views misrepresented by L. 211-19 

CHAPTER 23. Mr. Boott's debts. The business of the iron 

FOUNDRY. More of Mr. Lowell's mistakes. - - - 219 

Mistakes imputed to me, 219-22 

A letter from K. B. not before printed, 223 

Records of Mill Dam Foundry, 224 

Mistakes or misstatements of L. 223-31 

LetterfromR. Ralston, jr. Nov. 12, 1830, - - - - - 232-3 

CHAPTER 24. Mb. Boott's debts. His guardianship ac- 
counts. 233 

His under-estimate of debt due his wards, ...... 233-4 

Letterfrom John S. Tyler, Jan. 18, 1849, ..... 235-7 

L.'s pretence of accurate accounts and settlements, ... 237-40 

CHAPTER 25. State of Mr. Boott's affairs in 1830. Dan- 
ger OF open insolvency, and total loss of the family 

property. - . , . . 240 

Gross mistakes, or misstatements, by L. 240-4 



XII 



PAGEr 

Correctness of my former statements, ------ 244-8 

Market price of stocks, in Atigust, 1830, proved, - - - - 248 

Amount of available means to raise money, . . - . 248-51 

How J, W. B. was finally relieved, 251-2 

CHAPTER 26. An exteaoedinary specimen of financieking 

ABILITY. 252 

L.'s gross exaggeration of assets, and reduction of liabilities, - 252-8 

CHAPTER 27. Price, at which the stocks should be charged, 
IN 1830. Pretence of mere informalities. What became 

OF THE stocks, HELD IN TRUST IN 1818. .... 258 

Rule for trustee to discharge himself, 259 

No specific trust investment existing in 1830, - - - 259-64 

Pretence of customary informalities, 264-7 

Trust funds properly invested in 1818, 267-70 

They went, in part, to Boott & Lowell, . -• - ^ - 271-2 

CHAPTER 28. Mr. Boott's position in 1830. Me. Kirk Boott's 

LETTERS. 272 

Statement of liabilities and assets, 272-4 

K. B.'s letters of 1830 and 1831 reprinted, with notes, - - - 274-81 

CHAPTER 29. Mr. Boott's position in May, 1831. Circum- 
stances LEADING TO THE ARRANGEMENT OP THAT DATE WITH 

Mr. Lowell. 282 

The arrangement, 282 

Made by me, at K. B.'s request, to save what could be saved, for 

trust funds, 283-8 

State and value of trust property, in May, 1831, proved, - - 288-91 

$32,000, only, in value, is left, clear of special liens, - - - 291-2 

CHAPTER 30. The agreement of May, 1831. Mr. Lowell's 

MISTAKE WITH A CIRCUMSTANCE. 29S 

All, except foundry, marked as trust property, though subject to 

pledges, 293-4 

Pretence that $25,000, of J. W. B.'s, was mixed with property of 

estate, 294-8 

All parties acknowledged the reverse, 298-300 

Pretence that L. knew nothing of J. W. B.'s affairs, except from me, 

and therefore could not have so agreed, 301-5 

CHAPTER 31. Mr. Lowell's argument from the agreement 
of May, 1831, on the reality of the cash balance 

CLAIMED FOR Mr. BoOTT. 305 

This agreement, and other facts, not disputed, prove the balance of 

account unreal, 305-8 

L.'s sophistical argument met by a reductio ad absurdum. - - 308-14 

CHAPTER 32. Mr. Boott's resignation of the agency of 
THE Suffolk Manufacturing Company. The charge 



XIII 

Page. 
AGAINST ME OF MISREPEESENTATION BY ITALICISING TURNEEi 

UPON Mr. Lowell. 314 

J. W. B. wished to resign all the property, not the foundry only, us 

L. pretends, 315-20 

In proof, L. quotes part, and suppresses part, of same letter, - - 320-2 

L. founds a direct charge, on his own erroneous inference, - - 322-6 

CHAPTER 33. Mr. Jackson's letter, of Mat 8, 1831. - - 326 

Produced by L. to prove J. W. B.'s fitness for the family trust, - 326-7 

Written at my suggestion, on consultation with K. B. &c., - ^ 327 

Heirs ignorant of state of accounts^ 327-33 

L.'s acquaintance with the facts, 333 

Mr. Jackson partially informed, 333-6 

Chief object of letter to compel a settlement of the family accounts^ 336 

The letter, . - .337 

Its language shows this object, 337-8 

CHAPTER 34. Effect of mr. Jackson's Letter. Further 
letters urging an account in vain. Opinions enter- 
tained OF Mr. Boott. Motives to long forbearance 

and acquiescence. 339 

J. W. B. thereupon resigned agency of Suflfolk Manufacturing Com- 
pany, 339 

Other letters to J. W. B. - - 339-42 

Why agencies were sought for J. W. B. 342-7 

Why heirs acquiesced in his holding the property, - - - 347-8 

CHAPTER 35. State of the trust fund after the Ltman 
& Ralston settlement in September, 1831. Its real de- 
ficiency partly covered up in the account of 1844, by 

A new valuation. 349 

Effect of that settlement on J. W. B.'s position, .... 349-52 

Mrs. Boott's trust fund deficient by more than $50,000, - - 352-5 

How the ap;?are?z^ deficiency was reduced, in 1844, to $3715 44, - 355-7 

CHAPTER 36. Another charge against me of misrepresenta- 
tion turned upon Mr. Lowell. A query respecting his 

ALLEGED LIEN ON THE STOCKS, IN 1844. .... 353 

This charge is founded on a mere prevarication, ... - 359-69 
Had L. a lien for new advances to J. W. B. on property known 

not to be his? 369-71 

L. applied moneys to one debt, appropriated to another. Could he 

still hold the same lien '? - -. 371-3 

CHAPTER 37. Pretended impregnability of Mr. Boott's po- 
sition, UNDER THE RELEASE OF 1833, .... 373 
The release no discharge of claims on trust funds, - - - 373-6 
Account of 1844 provides for L.'s debt, without disclosing it, - 376-7 
An account beginning with amount of trust funds, in 1833, could 

not have done this, 377-80 

The assumed valuation, in 1844, is the best possible for L.'s purpose, 380-1 

Ingenuity of the account, not applicable in 1833, - . - - 381-7 



XIV 

Page. 
CHAPTER 38. Failure op the "EfePLT" to establish Mr. 
Boott's right to charge stocks at the prices claimed 

in the account. - - - 388 

L.'s explanations show no right to charge 21 shares of B. M* Co. at 

$1300 a share, 388-94 

L.'s remarks on my deplorable ignorance, - - - * - 394^6 

CHAPTER 39. More op Mr. Lowell's lien. His means of 

KNOWING THE TRUE OWNERSHIP OF THE STOCKS. STRANGE 
MISTAKES, OR MISREPRESENTATIONS. 396 

Evidence of his means of knowledge, 396-401 

The facts, if known, in 1831, would have prevented any lien on 

estate's property, 401-2 

True rule of price, for charging the stocks, .... * 403-4 
Gross mistake, or misstatement, of figures by L. - - - - 404-8 

CHAPTER 40. A charge against me of misrepresentation, 

OR MISTAKE, IN MATTERS SAID TO HAVE BEEN DECIDED bIT 

the Supreme Judicial Court. ^ 408 

Case cited difi^ers from case in question, 408-13 

L. conceals fact of reduction of capital by B, M. Co^ ... 413-15 

CHAPTER 41. Mr. Kirk Boott's letter of May 10, 1833. 

Position op the trust fund at that time. - - - 416 

The letter, - - 4l7 

It proves large loss of Mrs. B.'s fund, 417-20 

CHAPTER 42. Position of Mr. Boott, and op the trust 

FUND, AND Op the DEBT TO Mr. LowELL, AFTER THE SET- 
TLEMENT OP THE GUARDIANSHIP ACCOUNTS, IN 1835. - - 420 

Deficiency of Mrs. B.'s fund, after deducting L.'s debt, - - - 420-6 

CHAPTER 43. Appropriation of trust funds to the pay- 
ment OP Mr. Boott's debts. ------- 426 

L. admits receipt by him of $2000 per annum, of the income of the 

stocks, as J. W. B.'s ovm income, 426-7 

Admission involved, that $27,800 of Mrs. B.'s income was also 

taken, 427-30 

Pretence that $2000 per ann. was J. W. B.'s own, a mere piece of 

sophistry, - * 430-1 

Near $66,000 of Mrs. B.*s income was in fact taken, - - - 431-46 

CHAPTER 44. Pretence op authority from Mrs. Boott to 

APPLY her income TO THE PAYMENT OF Mr. BoOTT's DEBTS. 448 

Proofs cited by L. insufficient, 448-53 

No subsequent release justifies prior misappropriations, - - 454-5 

Amount of usual remittance to Mrs. B. exaggerated, - - - 455-8 

CHAPTER 45. The account compared with other evidence 
OF the estate left BY Mr. Boott's father. Representa- 
tions OF A dividend of $20,000. ------ 458 

Hypothetical view of the account, thus far, 458-60 

Presumptive evidence of more capital received, - - . . 460-1 



XV 

AGS. 

J. W. B.'s representations, — L.'s suggestion of mistake, - - 461-4 

My letter of May 17, 1821, to Hon. P. C. Brooks, - - - 464-7 

CHAPTER 46. Mr. Lowell's explanation of Mr. Boott's 

STATEMENTS. The $10,000 PAYMENT TO ME. ThE ARGUMENT 

DRAWN FROM THE SILENCE AND ACQUIESCENCE OF THE HEIRS. 467 

Pretence that J. W. B. included a share of the reversions in the 

$20,000, 467-71 

Comments on the $10,000 payment to me, 471-4 

Pretence that heirs admitted oyer-payment, 474-7 

CHAPTER 47. Case of Messrs. Lyman & Ralston, Proofs 

THAT THE $10,000 PAYMENT TO THEM WAS ONLY ON ACCOUNT. 478 

L.'s concealment of direct evidence, -.---. 478-80 

Evidence from other sources, 480-5 

L.'s false comment on one of K. B.'s letters, - - - - 485-6 

CHAPTER 48. Pretended proof, by a letter from Mr. Kirk 

BOOTT, THAT THE $10,000 PAYMENT TO Mr. LyMAN, AND TO 

Mb. Ralston, was only on account. 487-492 

CHAPTER 49. Proof from the "Reply" that Lyman and 
Ralston received, each, an additional $10,000 in their 

final settlement. 492 

Proof stated, 492-5 

Inference that $100,000 is omitted in the account, - - - 495-500 

CHAPTER 50. The charge against me of a disingenuous 
USE OF Mr. Kirk Boott's letters. His letter of Sep- 
tember, 1826. His settlement with Mr. J. Wright Boott. 500 

The charge against me, 500-1 

K. B.'s letter of Sept. 8, 1826, - - 501-2 

L."'s comments and mine, ........ 502-5 

Settlement between K. B. and J. W. B. — L.'s concealment of evi- 
dence, 505-11 

Misrepresentation of my statement respecting losses in trade, - 511-13 

How I suppose the money to have gone, - - - - - 513-18 

-CHAPTER 51. Summary op Mr. Boott's mercantile connex- 
ions, AND stock transactions. 518 

Mercantile houses, 518-20 

Probate transactions, 520-1 

Sale of the trust stocks, and purchase in B. M. Co. - - - 521-2 

Chelmsford speculation, 522-4 

Sale of guardianship stocks, — investments in trade, &c., - - 524-5 

Sale of trust stocks to, or by, Boott & Lowell, .... 525-8 

Subsequent transactions, 528-9 

Letter from J. T. Morse, respecting Locks and Canals, - - 529-30 
Settlements of J. W. B. with K. B. &c. — Beginning of business 

of foundry, 530-1 



XVI 

Page. 

CHAPTER 52. The issues respecting losses op propeety in . 

TRADE AND OTHERWISE. A GREAT LOSS TO SOMEBODY, SHOWN 

FROM THE "Reply." 531 

My former statements, and present views, of the losses, and of the 

omissions of the account, 531-8 

L.'s theory, ' 538-9 

A loss of $140,000 to $150,000 to be accounted for, - - - 539-41 

CHAPTER 53. The evidence of Mr. J. Wright Boott's pri- 
vate FORTUNE. 542 

The old house of K. B. & Son had but three business years, - 542-6 

L.'s hypothesis,— J. W. B. worth $70,000,— his father only $280,000, 546-7 

Estimates of the clerks, — a statement from L.'s father, - - - 547-9 

Failure to show any thing for the $70,000, 549-52 

CHAPTER 54. Losses of the first house of Kirk Boott & 
Sons. Basis on which the second house probably be- 
gan business. 552 

Alleged loss by bad debts in England, 553-4 

Do. by repeal of war duties, 554-5 

Do. by resumption of specie payments,— L.'s mistake of 

three years in time, 555-6 

A gap of four years in liquidation, 557-8 

Capital of estate left in the new house, 558-60 

Mr. Boott senior's advances to Mr. Wells, - - - - - 559 

Specified losses fell, chiefly, on second house, .... 559-61 

CHAPTER 55. Losses by the second house of Kirk Boott 
& Sons. Arguments of the "Reply" to disprove them. 
Evidence of payments to Mr. James Boott and to 

Mr. Wells. 562 

Pretence of profit disproved by K. B. 562-4 

Fallacy of comparing K. B.'s property with J. B.'s, . . - 564-6 

K. B.'s profit in Chelmsford speculation suppressed, - - . 566-70 

J. B. received $20,000, 571-2 

Mr. Wells received the same less advances, 572-5 

L.'s suppressions and concealments, 575-6 

Why J. W. B. was commonly thought rich, .... 576-9 

CHAPTER 56. Concealment of facts connected with the 
house of Boott & Lowell. Summary of particular 

losses through the mismanagement of Mr. Boott. - 579 

Silence concerning trust funds that went to B. & L. - - - 579-82 

Amount, demanding explanation, - - - - - - 582-3 

Loss to parties interested, $116,900, without interest, - - - 583-5 

CHAPTER 57. In what my supposed charge of mismanage- 
ment AGAINST Mr. Boott consisted. 586 

Reasons given to Mr. Bowditch for declining to sign deed, - - 587-90 

Conversations with others confidential, or relating only to insanity, 590-3 

Facts, inducing me not to sign deed, 593-5 



XVII 

Page. 
CHAPTER 58. Peompt agency in preparing and making up 

THE ACCOUNT. Mr LoWELl's RESPONSIBILITY FOR ITS SUB- 
STANTIAL TRUTH. 596 

Proof that L. admitted J. W. B.'s mismanagement, . . . 596-7 

L.'s haste to get releases beforehand, 597-9 

His obtaining the family correspondence, 599-600 

My former statements respecting making of account, - - - 600-2 

What materials came from J. W. B. 602-6 

All the important evidence lay in books of B. & L. and L. is a 

real accounting party, 606-9 

CHAPTER 59. Mr. Boott's unwillingness to adopt the ac- 
count DRAWN UP BY Mr. LoWELL. ..... 609 

What the account intended to show, 609-1 1 

L.'s former admissions, and pi-esent denials, that J. W. B. refused 

to sign, with reasons and proofs, 611-13 

L. contradicted by F. Dexter, 613 

Further proofs that J. W. B. did refuse, for several months, - - 613-20 

CHAPTER 60. Mr. Lowell's unwarranted use or my name 

TO pass an account. - - 621 

My former statements, and L.'s answer, ..... 622-7 

L.'s misstatement of facts leading to release, .... 627-30 

Pretence that he proposed the compromise, 630-1 

Conversation with L. leading to his letter of Dec. 10, 1844, - - 631-3 

His letter of Dec. 10, 1844, in full, 633 

L.'s reasons for printing one sentence only, 633-7 

My answer of Dec. 11, printed by L. without the letter answered, — 

false effect produced, 637-41 

Release, signed by L. for me as trustee, shown in probate court, 

and account passed, Dec. 16, 641-2 

Premature, — L.'s sole act, — not disclosed, 642-7 

L. not authorized to use the release so signed, .... 647-9 

Judge Warren deceived as to transfer of property, - - - 649-51 

P^e^^ious notice that I would not sign as trustee, - - - - 651-2 
My letter of Dec. 17, and L.'s conversation with me afterwards, 

concealing the transaction of Dec. 16, 652-5 

Foundation of pretended authority to sign for me, - - - 655-7 

Pretended want of notice before my letter of Dec. 17, - - - 657-8 

If so, still a purposed deception, 658-63 

No authority, and L. knew it, 663 

Why I signed for myself, and refused as trustee, offering to resign, 663-6 

CHAPTER 61. Mr. Lowell's representations of the settle- 
ment. Further subtraction of Mrs. Boott's income. - 666 
A verbal agreement made, — forthwith broken, .... 666-8 

Correspondence in January, 1845, 668-70 

Confirmatory release obtained from Mrs. Boott, - . . . 670-1 
Accounts, as settled, took $4560 more of her income to make up 

the nominal fund, 671-3 

Objected to by W. B, and self, when discovered, .... 673 
c 



XVIII 



Page 

A foolish charge of anachronism answered, 673-4 

Mrs. Boott's money really taken to pay L. 674-5 

CHAPTER 62. Mr. Lowell's conduct in relation to the in- 
quest. Time of his reception of Mr. Boott's last 

letter. 676 

My former statement Avas of facts, not inferences, - - - - 676-7 

Various statements as to time collated, 677-9 

J. C. Adams's certificate of conversation with coroner, - - 679-80 

Letters from Dr. Jackson, Dec. 3, 1847, and Jan. 26, 1848, - - 680-82 

Comments upon the evidence, 682-6 

CHAPTER 63. Mr. Lowell's conduct at the inquest. His 

INTEREST IN ITS RESULT. 687 

Our conversation just before the inquest, 687-8 

L.'s pretence of no interest in the verdict, &c. . _ - - 688-90 

His probable accountability for funds lost by J. W. B. - - 691-3 

His loans, on stocks not the property of J. W. B. ... 693-5 

He was committed by former representations, &c, - - - 695-6 

CHAPTER 64. Mr. Lowell's conduct in relation to the 

INQUEST. How I WAS MISLED. 697 

L.'s reception of the letter and will, without notice to me, - - 697-8 

Pretence that I knew his opinion that J. W. B. was sane, - - 698-9 

L.'s letters to Dr. Boott, April 10 and 19, 1844, ... - 699-701 

His correspondence with W. B. in June, 1844, .... 701-2 

No notice to me, by the letters to Dr. B. 702-4 

None from L.'s conversations, 704-6 

His pretence of not influencing the verdict, 706-7 

His plan to get control of the inquest, 707-9 

CHAPTER 65. Mr. Lowell's conduct respecting a notice 
TO Mr, William Boott. His alleged motives. Some 

CORRECTIONS BY MrS. LyMAN. 710 

L.'s great interest in the family, — no part in the disputes, - - 710-11 

Promise to notify W. B. broken, — the excuses, .... 711-13 

Pretended desire to prevent rumour of murder, .... 714-16 

L.'s reported testimony went to sanity only, - - - • 717 

Mrs. Lyman's corrections on sundry points, 717-21 

CHAPTER 66. Mr. Lowell's conduct in relation to the 

LAST letter of THE DECEASED. 722 

Occasion of the letter, — L.'s statement of contents, - - - 722-3 
My former statements, with letters between F. Dexter and C G. 

Loring, 723-8 

F.Dexter's letter tome, of Sept. 14, 1845, 728 

L.'s endorsement of J. W. B.'s charges, and refusal to show me his 

letter, 728-30 

Pretended motives, — warning of consequences, . . - - 730-6 

Assurances that he had not shown or read the letter to any one, - 736-7 

False account of interview with F. Dexter, , - - . - 737-9 

Letter from F. Dexter, March 15, 1848, .... - 739-40 



XIX 

Page. 

L 's disregard of coi'r'ections sought, and wilful misstatements, - 740-3 

Condition of not disputing will, and its consequence, - - - 743-5 

L.'s complaint that his word was doubted, ^ - . . . 745 
Proof that he read parts of the letter to the coroner, the jury, Mr. 

P. T. Jackson, and Dr. Jackson, 745-9 

Effect of his misrepresentations, 749-51 

His new excuse for refusing explanation, 751-2 

CHAPTER 67. An outline op my answer to sundry new 

CHARGES MADE BY Mr. LoWELL. 752 

Charge of harsh treatment of J. W. B. — what inquiries it includes, 752-6 

Insanity not an essential point for me, 756-9 

Mutual misleading, between L. and certain members of the family, 759-60 

Pretence that witnesses are biased by resentments, - - - 761-4 

Pretence that we did not believe J. W. B. insane, - . . 764-5 

Pretence that we began family quarrels, 765-8 

Dr. B.'s former opinions changed by confidence in L. - - - 768-70 

L.'s own sudden change of opinion, — its cause, - - - - 770 

Dr. Jackson's opinion rests on L.'s statements, . - . - 770-1 

Conduct of Mrs. Brooks and myself misrepresented by L. - - 771-5 

A material date misprinted, by one year, ..... 775 

Cause of my letter to Mr. Wells, - 776-9 

Sanity of J. W. B.'s ideas. Mrs. Lyman's removal not by my 

instrumentality, 779-81 

CHAPTER 68. A recapitulation, and summary of the con- 
troversy, AS If NOW stands. 782 



\ 



AN ANSWEH 



CHAPTER I. 

STYLE AND TONE OF THE REPLY. OUTLINE OF FACTS, WHICH 
LED TO MY FORMER STATEMENT. 

Mr. Lowell's '' Reply" to my pamphlet, though he is quite 
right in not naming it an answer^ is highly creditable to his 
literary ability. It indicates that he might succeed as a 
writer of fictitious narrative. At least, he has produced 
what the reviewers would call a slashing article — in style, 
quite gladiatorial. Its apparent aim is not sober truth, and 
quiet justification, but rout, victory and slaughter. Pretty 
indiscriminate, too ; party or witness, counsel or magistrate, 
who may chance to stand in Mr. Lowell's way, is equally 
treated as an assailant, and with no great delicacy in the 
choice of weapons, even when that unfortunate position 
happens to be occupied by some of the gentler sex. 

I should not do its author justice were I to say that the 
" Reply" answers nothing, or explains nothing ; nor even 
that there is no fair discussion in it ; — but I do him no in- 
justice in saying that there is next to none, and that candid 
statement is of rare occurrence. Some new facts, certainly, 
are brought to light, bearing on the old subjects of inquiry. 
But the most important of these rest, wholly, on Mr. Low- 
ell's i^se dixit. Some new evidence is produced. But it 
relates, chiefly, to collateral subjects, and either opens new 
issues, or widens old ones of minor importance. 

In matters of statement and reasoning, exaggeration 
1 



and assumption are its constant characteristics. Some tri- 
fling obscm'ities in the facts before known, or suspected, 
are cleared up, it is true. But from the manner, in 
which this is done, one might think it were a clearing 
away of the whole horizon. A few mistakes of mine, in 
particulars of very subordinate importance, are displayed, 
with a flourish of trumpets and beating of drums, that 
seem to announce the detection of fatal errors, involving the 
whole merits of the controversy. Some trifling slip of 
^ memory, or inaccuracy of expression, is seized upon as a 
great prize, held up, turned over and over, repeated and mag- 
nified, till it might seem, to a careless observer, to cover the 
whole case. Charges, never made, are refuted with becoming 
indignation — triumphantly, of course. Some, that I did 
make, are treated more tenderly. The evidence concerning 
them is either thrust aside contemptuously, as of no value, 
or completely smothered up in smoke and mystification. In- 
genious sophistry often evades the true point in dispute, and 
makes much show of an answer, when there really is none. 
A vast deal of mis-statement and monstrous assumption are 
the groundwork, sometimes, of an argument, and sometimes 
of an accusation, pronounced or insinuated. There is a 
world of positive assertion, commonly without a particle of 
proof, and sometimes respecting facts, which Mr. Lowell, by 
his own showing, could not possibly know, and has no evi- 
dence of, and yet proclaims like an oracle. At last, the old 
trick is resorted to of seeming to relinquish the line of de- 
fence, for the purpose of ^' carrying the war into Africa," so 
as to produce an impression that the enemy has been driven 
from all his positions, and that nothing remains but to cut 
ofl" his escape, and show him in triumph to the people. 
Grave charges against me, personally, and against others, are 
made prominent, with some show of evidence, such as will 
hardly bear sifting, but may serve to mislead cursory readers. 
The whole aflair is conducted, too, with a tone of confidence 
and authority, which makes it an admirable imposition for 
popular efl'ect. To heighten this, the monotony of ac- 
counts and arithmetical computations and dry statements of 



fact is pleasantly relieved by the interspersion of occasional 
moral reflections, scraps of poetry, and veins of irony and 
sarcasm, extremely well designed to captivate the hearts and 
understandings of a class of readers, who have no relish for 
sober statement and sound argument. Altogether it is a 
bold curiosity. If I were disposed to follow its style, 
(which I shall most carefully avoid,) perhaps I might advan- 
tageously borrow a phrase, and say its "audacity" ''defies 
all competition.'.' - [L. p. 63.] 

Moreover, this same pamphlet, under cover of vindicating 
a deceased friend, as well as Mr. Lowell himself, masks, in 
truth, a venomous attack on the conduct and motives of 
myself and others, and it has been most extensively circu- 
lated. 

My statement, made in self-defence against a prior covert 
attack from Mr. Lowell, though printed, for convenience, was 
sent to but fev/ persons — at first, a very few, whom I consid- 
ered particularly entitled to be informed of its contents, and 
afterwards to such other friends as took interest enough in 
the matter to solicit a copy. There I stopped. I had no 
idea of making my private grievance a world's wonder, or of 
entertaining the great public with a painful domestic his- 
tory, forced from me by Mr. Lowell. 

His '' Reply," on the other hand, converting his former 
secret attack into an open one, and yet pretending to treat 
me as the assailant, who had thrown him on the defensive, 
has been most bountifully distributed. Not content with 
dropping it at every door of our common acquaintance in 
this city, he has dispersed two thousand copies, I am told, 
far and wide, through town and country, many of them 
among strangers, and even at distant places in other states. 
Were these measures of defence ? let me ask. 

By way of commentary I may add, that some of the many 
persons in New-York, who were indulged with copies, are 
said to have inquired. Who is this Mr. Brooks, who is so fa- 
vourably introduced to our acquaintance ? Others, as I have 
heard, have even ventured to ask, who this Mr. Lowell is. 
It follows, of course, that the greater part of the readers of 



the '' E.eply" have never even had an opportunity of seeing 
the pamphlet, which it pretends to answer ; but have enjoyed 
the high privilege of feasting on Mr. Lowell's libel, quite 
unadulterated by any of the ''poison," to which its innocent 
statements might be '' turned, by passing through the alem- 
bic of Mr. Brooks's mind." [L. p. 34] 

Even of those, who read my pamphlet formerly, I can not 
flatter myself that many, perhaps all, have not long since 
forgotten, or but indistinctly remember, its. statements and 
.••proofs. Few readers, I am sensible, look beyond the indul- 
gence of a first curiosity in the scandal of a private contro- 
versy. Few stop to compare and scrutinize evidence. 
Hence, considering Mr. Lowell's social position, in connex- 
ion with the tone and character of his publication, thus 
widely disseminated, I was neither surprised nor dismayed, 
when I heard it announced, in certain quarters, that I had 
been not only answered and refuted, but absolutely annihi- 
lated, — or, as one gentleman expressed it, pulverised and 
hlow7i away. My surprise has rather been to find so many 
quiet readers, of both sides, who were not, themselves, car- 
ried away by such a whirlwind, but observed, as well as they 
could discern through the clouds of dust in the air, that 
whatever slight damage might have been sustained by some 
of the upper works, the foundations, at least, of my structure 
stood unshaken. 

There is enough of new matter, however, and enough of 
impression has been produced, to call forth a serious answer 
upon a very serious subject. Many may think, that, to place 
us on equal ground, my present remarks and those of my for- 
mer pamphlet ought, now, to be circulated as widely as Mr. 
Lowell's. And so they should be, had they been written for 
an electioneering campaign — or if my object were to do the 
utmost possible harm to Mr. Lowell — or if I wished to pro- 
duce, in my own favour, a merely popular efiect on this con- 
troversy. As it is, I shall follow no such example. The 
subjects, I am obliged to speak of, are such, that I have no 
desire to publish them to an unnecessary extent. My object 
is, and has been from the beginning, to correct erroneous 
impressions, occasioned by Mr. Lowell, concerning myself, 



where I think it important to have them corrected. I shall 
not depart, therefore, materially, from the course I formerly- 
pursued, until I see greater occasion for it than I now do. 

It is unfortunate for Mr. Lowell, a.nd a matter of regret to 
me, that I cannot make this correction, effectually, without 
presenting him in a very disadvantageous point of view. But 
it will be found that the fault is all his ov\^n — that, during the 
four or five years last past, he has steadily pursued a course 
the tendency of which (though that I do not presume to 
have been his direct object,) has been to sacrifice my repu- 
tation to certain ends of his own ; — and that, by his late pub- 
lication, at any rate, he has left himself no ground for com- 
plaint of retributive consequences. 

It is unfortunate, too, that I am obliged to speak of rela- 
tives and connexions, both living and dead, under circum- 
stances very undesirable for a public discussion, or even a 
private communication among friends. What, then, it is 
sometimes asked, is the necessity ? Why all this exposure 
of intimately private affairs ? Why this raking up of old 
family dissensions ? Why this disturbance of the ashes of 
the dead ? What can be more discreditable ? 

Mr. Lowell has not failed to avail himself of this natural 
sentiment in exciting all the prejudice against me, which 
such suggestions tend to create. With what candour and 
justice we shall presently see. 

Throughout his publication, he seeks to impress his reader, 
at every turn, with the belief that my complaints of him are 
a mere pretext to lay open to the public an old family quar- 
rel, which he had no concern with, and to cover a malignant 
assault on the memory of my brother-in-law, the late John 
Wright Boott. The book opens with solemn reflections on 
the odious character of a meditated attack on the dead, and 
assures the reader, at the threshold, that my correspondence 
with Mr. Lowell, in 1846, was entered upon for no other 
end. [L. p. 1.] It closes with the declaration, that I had 
evaded a full and fair inquiry into the merits of these former 
controversies, when tendered to me before the legal tribu- 
nals, — having shrunk, as is suggested, from that searching 
species of investigation, under a consciousness of weak- 



ness, but intending, all the while, to appeal to the public 
in print, with a one-sided statement, instead of submitting 
to a fair trial in a court of law. [L. 206, &c.] Numerous 
passages, from beginning to end, might be selected, which 
aver that the real issues are, exclusively, between that 
deceased gentleman and myself ; that I was blinded to his 
merits, in his life time, by excited feelings of animosity, 
arising out of a personal quarrel ; that I still pursue that 
quarrel beyond the grave ; that I have been, ever since his 
a* unfortunate death, only seeking excuses to blacken his mem- 
ory ; and that I finally picked a quarrel with an innocent 
and friendly third party, namely, Mr. John A. Lowell, only 
to make him serve as a sort of conduit, through which I 
might discharge my spite over the tomb of a buried enemy. 

Now if all this be shown, as it will be, to be utterly un- 
founded, its injustice and unfairness can only recoil upon 
the head of its author. Even as the matter now stands, 
on Mr. Lowell's showing, his contrivance is, perhaps, too 
easily seen through to answer its purpose ; for this imputing 
of bad motives to me seems to have had no other object than 
to withdraw attention from Mr. Lowell's own disingenuous 
part in an aflair very unfortunate for all concerned, and to 
heap upon me the odium, which justly belongs to himself. 

How came I to enter into a correspondence with Mr. 
John A. Lowell, in 1846 ? — and what was its tenor ? When, 
and how, and for what purpose, came I to make a printed 
statement ? If domestic matters, and matters affecting the 
memory of a deceased person, have become involved in a 
discussion between Mr. Lowell and myself, whose is the 
fault ? 

I shall endeavour to answer these inquiries plainly, — tem- 
perately, — clearly, — without any of those startling and pun- 
gent graces of the ''Reply," which seem to resemble what 
the actors call clap-traps. To do so, I must, first, briefly 
recapitulate some of the leading undisputed facts. 

There had been, it is too true, much unhappy dissension 
m the family, of which I was, by marriage, a member. 
Should I say that this was wholly caused by peculiarities 
and eccentricities in the character and conduct of the late 



Mr. J. Wright Boott, I should forestall a question at issiTC. 
This, for the present, I forhear. Bat I may safely say, that 
these dissensions related^ entirely, to the conduct of that 
gentleman and to matters growing out of it. 

It was believed, by some of us, during the latter part of 
his life, that he had become, and in fact had long been, 
partially insane. This was doubted, or disbelieved, by 
others. It was known to me, and believed by those, who 
acted with me, that, whether insane or not, he had very 
much mismanaged the family property, which was all in his 
hands, and that he was, in the then condition of the family, 
a most unsuitable trustee for some of his brothers and sisters, 
with whom he was at variance. Others were incredulous 
of all this, and, knowing nothing of the facts, supposed Mr. 
Boott to have been an excellent manager of the property, 
and attributed every suggestion of the contrary to some 
improper motive. He had never settled the accounts of his 
father's estate, though twenty-seven years had elapsed since 
he took upon himself the trusts of the executorship, and 
there was no security, for any considerable sum, in the 
bond he had given. 

Under these circumstances, the question arose, whether a 
new fund, expected from the sale of the family mansion, 
should be permitted to go into his hands. My previous 
knowledge, and other circumstances, seemed to require of 
me to judge for others as well as for myself. Several of the 
family were absent — several, who were here, I knew to be 
mistaken as to facts — and I was, besides, a trustee for some 
minors, who were interested. Mr. William Boott was the 
only brother, then living, in this country. He was fully 
persuaded of Mr. J. Wright Boott's insanity, and thought 
him unfit to be the family trustee. Both Mr. William 
Boott, therefore, and myself declined executing a certain 
deed, which would have had the effect of placing the pro- 
ceeds of the sale abovementioned in Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
hands to manage at his discretion, with security merely 
nominal, and with knowledge, on our part, of a very indis- 
creet investment, which he proposed. We declined sign- 



ing, until it was agreed that a new trustee should be 
appointed. 

Mr. Lowell, though not a member of this family, professed 
himself to be a common friend, and more particularly the 
friend of Mr. J. Wright Boott. In that capacity, and as his 
representative, he became an active negotiator for him on 
this subject. He prepared a paper, called an account of the 
executorship, and claiming a balance of $25,000 to be due 
to the executor. This I di(] not admit, nor believe in, and 
'the paper was very unsatisfactory, as an account, both in 
substance and form. The negotiation, however, ended in a 
compromise, whereby the account was allowed, without 
proof or question, on the condition of Mr. Boott's resigning 
his trust, and permitting a new trustee to be appointed ; 
and the required deed of the house was then executed. 

Several months after this settlement, Mr. Boott died fey 
suicide. An inquest was holden, which Mr. Lowell con- 
ducted in behalf of the family, and at which he made 
himself a witness. I was not present at it ; neither was Mr, 
William Boott. We knew nothing of the testimony, except 
as it afterAvards appeared in an official report. No evidence 
had been offered by Mr. Lowell, tending to prove insanity. 
He expressed his own opinion that the deceased was not 
insane. The verdict, therefore, was simply " suicide." The 
offi.cial report of the evidence, accompanying the coroner's 
return, contained nothing justly exceptionable in Mr. Low- 
ell's testimony, if he believed that he had ''never discovered 
any thing indicating insanity in the deceased ;" [B. App. 
p. 59.] though that testimony, in so positive a shape, and 
without qualification, or allusion to the opposite opinion of 
others and to facts he had mentioned to me, that very 
day, tending to confirm this opposite opinion, was quite 
contrary to my expectation, and, under the circumstances 
detailed in my former pamphlet, a great surprise. 

But the deceased left a will, enclosed, as was said, in 
a letter to Mr. Lowell. That letter, according to Mr. Low- 
ell, gave a history of the family dissensions, and con- 
tained charges against me of dishonesty, in my conduct 
towards the writer, and, among other things, of having 



9 

placed and kept one of his own sisters in the house with 
him to act as my spy. Knowing these charges to be with- 
out the slightest colour of foundation, I considered them 
further evidence of insane delusion. Mr. Lowell, however, 
insisted that the letter was a perfectly sane production. 
A sight of it was therefore solicited by me, but refused. It 
was urged and claimed as my right, under such circum- 
stances ; but was still refused. 

This was the origin of my difference with Mr. Lowell. I 
had been much displeased, certainly, with other points of 
his conduct, which had then become known to me ; but, 
when he refused to show me a letter concerning, particularly, 
my own character and deportment in family relations, which 
Mr. Lowell had no right to meddle with, — while he was giv- 
ing weight to its insulting statements, by declaring that its 
author was perfectly sane, and that the letter itself was 
proof of his sanity, — this conduct, as affairs stood, seemed 
to me not the part of a friend or a gentleman. Circum- 
stances made it a grievous injury ; — for the dissensions in 
the family, while the matter of executing the deed was in 
agitation, had become a subject of curiosity and conversation 
among our common acquaintance, although the true causes 
of them were little known. Statements, unjustly affecting 
my reputation, had been made. The public excitement, 
usually caused by a case of suicide, gave them new vitality. 
It became known that a letter was left by the deceased, said 
to explain the causes of his self-destruction ; and it began to 
be whispered about that some shameful misconduct of other 
members of the family, and of myself in particular, had led 
to this melancholy event. Mr. Lowell's statements to third 
persons, respecting the contents of the letter, however cau- 
tiously made, I was satisfied were tending to strengthen 
these rumours ; and I had reason to suspect that portions of 
the letter itself had been shown or repeated. 

As the only means left of obtaining a sight of the letter, after 
personal applications and the intervention of a friend had prov- 
ed ineffectual, and with the view also of proving the writer's 
insanity, I availed myself of my wife's right, as an heir at 

2 



10 

law, to oppose the probate of Mr. J. Wright Boott's will, 
hoping to compel an exhibition of the letter at the hearing. 
This attempt failed on a point of law, which was decided 
against me. In the mean time, Mrs. William Lyman, another 
sister and heir of the deceased, became, under the advice of 
some of her best friends, and of able counsel, an opponent of 
the will on her own account. Mr. William Boott, Mrs. Brooks 
and myself, thereupon, conveyed to her all our pecuniary 
rights and interests in the property. With these intjrests, 
added to her own, Mrs. Lyman, by the advice of her counsel, 
carried the cause, by appeal, to the Supreme Court. I ex- 
pected to be a witness in the cause, and to have an opportu- 
nity, in that capacity, of explaining some matters, which 
concerned my own vindication, including what might be 
charged in the letter, which it was probable would, in some 
way, be brought out at the trial, as bearing on the question 
of the testator's sanity. I had great confidence, that, upon 
a fair and full investigation, a jury would be convinced, that 
the writer of that letter was not of sound mind. Wliether 
they should be or not, I had no doubt it would appear, that 
his death was not justly attributable to any misconouct of 
myself, or of any other member of the family. 

About a year after the appeal, however, and before it came 
to a hearing, Mrs. Lyman altered her determination, and 
withdrew her opposition to the will. The law left me, then, 
no opportunity of trying the question. My own right of 
property, as an heir, had been parted with to Mrs. Lyman ; 
and it was, besides, too late for any other heir to make an 
appeal. This misfortune, however, was not without its 
consolatory circumstances ; for I felt a natural reluctance to 
disclose, even as a witness and for my own defence, painful 
incidents of domestic life, which a trial would have brought 
to light. 

As matter of personal reputation, I had thought it incum- 
bent upon me to take all proper means to obtain sight of a 
letter, said to contain serious charges against me, — by a gen- 
tleman, Yv^hom Mr. Lowell and his friends, and all, who 
relied on his authority, believed to be perfectly sane when 
he made them, — in order that I might answer or explain 



11 

them 10 other parties, concerned in these family matters, 
and to my own friends, if I should find it necessary so to do. 
I had thought it also incumbent upon me, to put the fact of 
Mr. Boott's sanity in the way for legal investiga.tion, since, 
if he should be found to have been insane, that, of itself, 
would sufficiently answer his charges. I believed this had 
been eifectually done by Mrs. Lyman's appeal. It was 
hardly to have been anticipated, that I^rs. Lyman would 
abandon a cause, which she had once, under legal advice, 
deliberately made up her mind to prosecute. 

My endeavours to rectify my position, it was true, had thus 
entirely failed ; but not from the want of any step proper for 
me to have taken, under the circumstances. I was sensible, 
that a prevalent opinion had grown up to my disadvantage, 
and that the abrupt abandonment, for reasons not known to 
the public, of the suit, which, it was understood, was to try 
the question of the sanity of the deceased, tended to in- 
crease it. But no individual was, apparently, responsible 
for the origin of this prevailing opinion. I was extremely 
suspicious that it was, indirectly, owing to Mr. Lowell ; but 
I had no definite ground to justify my acting on that hy- 
pothesis. I had made up my mind, therefore, to submit to 
my misfortune, for the simple reason that I saw nothing 
proper for me to do towards self-vindication. The idea of 
drawing up a formal statement, to disclose, either in print or 
in manuscript, upon my own authority, the disagreeable facts, 
which would have appeared upon a trial, was quite revolt- 
ing to me. It was a last resort, which did not appear to 
me sufficiently called for by the breath of an intangible 
rumour. 

Such, precisely, was the state of the case, when in Novem- 
ber, 1846, I became, for the first time, informed, of testimony 
from Mr. Lowell, at the coroner's inquest in May, 1845, 
which did not appear in the coroner's official return, and 
which, if correctly reported to me, called for explanation. 
This discovery entirely altered my views as to the neces- 
sity of action. It made certain to my mind that, which 
I had before suspected. The testimony, not officially re- 
ported, but known to a number of persons at the time, 



12 

though not to me, was sufficient to account for the common 
belief. It furnished me with a responsible author, in whole 
or in part, of calumnies widely spread. I saw that I was 
suffering in reputation through the agency of Mr. Lowell, 
who had acted, as I was bound to presume, under some mis- 
take. I considered it my duty, therefore, as a gentleman, 
to call upon him for an explanation ; and, as preliminary to 
that, to give him the opportunity, as a gentleman, of stating, 
in his own language, what his testimony was. This led to 
''the correspondence, which I formerly printed. [B. pp. 12-24.] 

Mr. Lowell evaded the most material of my inquiries, 
and finally refused to answer them. This compelled me to 
another step; namely, to prove, by those, who had heard it, 
what his testimony Avas. I did so, and found my informa- 
tion concerning it substantially correct. I saw that Mr. 
Lowell was chiefly relied upon, in public opinion, to war- 
rant what was commonly believed to my prejudice. It was 
plain, from the correspondence, that he was not prepared, 
and did not intend, to take back, amend, qualify or explain 
any thing he had said, in a way to remove the imputation ; 
and that he would not permit, if he could prevent it, any 
mistake to be corrected. 

It was then, for the first time, that I felt the necessity, 
and formed the determination, of printing that correspond- 
ence, and the written declarations of the jurymen respecting 
Mr. Lowell's testimony, with some portions of the evi- 
dence, within my knowledge, needful to contradict it, for 
the purpose, not of general publication, but of submitting 
the statement to what Mr. Lowell is pleased to call '' a select 
portion of the public ;" [L. p. 2.] that is to say, a few of m}^ 
own friends, who I believed had got wrong impressions, and 
some other persons, who had a particular right, or interest, to 
know the truth. 

This is a plain summary of the facts regarding my own 
course of action. I shall presently refer, for confirmation of 
it, to the statements of gentlemen, whose relation to me, as my 
counsel, placed them in the best position to know the time, 
manner, and occasion of my acting as I did. 



13 



CHAPTER II. 

JUSTIFICATION OF MY FOE.]\IER PRINTED STATE- 
MENT. 

If my object had been that, which Mr. Lowell suggests, — 
to calumniate and vilify either the dead or the living, — I 
ought, like Mr. Lowell, to have published what he calls a 
"posthumous attack," [L. p. 141.] to the four winds. But 
I meant to do neither more nor less than I thought the 
necessity of the case, common regard for my own reputa- 
tion, and respect for the opinion of judicious friends, had 
made imperative ; and that was, to cause the very limited cir- 
culation, above mentioned, of a printed statement. If I erred 
in this judgement, Mr. Lowell, at least, has no right to com- 
plain of it, considering the character and the extent of his 
recent pubHcation. 

Neither can Mr. Lowell, justly, complain of attacks on the 
dead, which he himself has provoked and compelled, even if 
the statements of my former pamphlet deserved, (as I think it 
clear they do not,) to be so regarded. Still less is it for him 
to complain, that I disclose private family matters, to which 
he, (who is not a member, nor even a remote connexion of 
that family,) says he was '' no party ^ [Letter from Mr. Low- 
ell, B. p. 17.] But, for reasons that will appear in the sequel, 
it suits Mr. Lowell's purpose to hold himself out as the gen- 
erous champion of the Boott family, without, as he pre- 
tends, an atom of personal interest in the matter, and to play 
the part of an indignant vindicator of the honor of a friend 
in his grave, Avhom he represents to have been made the 
subject of a cowardly attack. How all this assumption and 
pretension will appear, when the whole course of Mr. Low- 
ell's conduct in this matter, so far as I may be able to trace 
it, comes to be disclosed, the reader will judge. 

If Mr. Lowell can not, can the public, can any of my 
friends, can any of the Boott family, reasonably complain 



14 

of the course I have taken ? I am well av/are how highly 
objectionable it is to expose to the gaze of strangers, without 
necessity, the privacy of domestic life, or to discuss, in print, 
questions of personal infirmity and individual character, or 
conduct, whether of the dead or of the living. I am entirely 
sensible how rarely complete justice can be done, in any 
controverted matter, upon mere ex parte statements and 
proofs. I was struck with some sensible remarks on this sub- 
ject, in a respectable journal of this city, not long since, 
^ caused by a very gross case of mistaken interference on the 
part of the press, and even of a portion of the city govern- 
ment, (at the invitation, apparently, of nobody concerned,) in 
matters of a strictly private character, affecting several re- 
spectable persons, whose actions and motives were thus 
brought into public discussion. The concluding sentences 
were as follows : '' There are, doubtless, cases of violation of 
rights, which cannot be redressed without appeal to the pub- 
lic tribunals, or to the public sentiment. But, in general, the 
more completely such griefs are suffered to repose in the shade 
of entire privacy, the better it is for all concerned. A wan- 
ton invasion of that privacy should be regarded as one of 
the greatest offences against good manners, and should be 
punished by the pointed censures of the public opinion." I 
entirely subscribe to these sentiments, and must submit to 
the censure, if I fail to satisfy every impartial reader, that 
this is, precisely, one of those cases, which constitute an ex- 
ception to the general rule. 

Will any man tell me what he is to do, vv^ho has the mis- 
fortune to discover that his good name and estimation in the 
community, in which he lives, have been secretly undermined, 
in some serious matter, by a person of high standing in that 
community, who, being applied to, refuses all reparation ? 
Shall he take the law into his own hands, and administer 
summary justice upon the offender, after the fashion of bar- 
barians ? Or shall he break the law, according to the usage 
sanctioned among gentlemen in many civilized communities, 
by calling out the offender, to shoot him, or be shot by him, 
with all the ceremonies prescribed by the code of honour ? 



m 

In either event, how stands the question as to the truth of 
the calumnies, that had been uttered ? Is that settled by the 
direction of the bullet, or by any act of personal violence, 
employed or attempted ? Is the wounded reputatioji set 
right, in the estimation of those, among whom he lives ? 

Presuming that these modes of supposed redress, however 
available, and hoAvever sanctioned in some parts of the world, 
do not receive the countenance and approval of this commu- 
nity, I repeat. What is the injured party here to do ? He may 
have two other modes of proceeding open to him — appeal to 
the law, and appeal to public sentiment. He can have no 
other. Without discusshig the value of suits for damages, 
and the estimate of a man's reputation in dollars and cents, 
by twelve men drawn out of a ballot box, or the advantage 
of trying his antagonist by indictment, on his own oath, 
when an offence has been committed against the Common- 
wealth, it is enough to say that, in my own case, I was ad- 
vised that Mr. Lowell had not spoken any actionable slander, 
nor been guilty of any indictable matter. He had not 
charged me with murder, or any other cHme, or legal mis- 
demeanour, that I know of. He had, at that time, only ver- 
bally stated, as facts, certain matters, that were not absolutely 
true, or, if literally true, had so stated them as to convey, 
by the omission of other facts, false impressions, and had 
thereby caused it to be believed, by many persons, that I. by 
a course of unjustifiable conduct, had caused a brother-in-law 
to take his oion life. Whether he believed his statements to 
be true or not, and whether he purposely, or carelessly, 
omitted the other statements, which should have been made, 
or whether he did not believe in the truth of those matters, 
which I think should have been stated, are questions wholly 
immaterial to my present point ; since the result of our cor- 
respondence, in December, 1846, was, that he refused to 
reconsider, or even to restate, for my information, his for- 
mer testimony to the jury, or to permit me to inquire into 
its correctness, or to aid me, in any way, in rectifying a mis- 
take, if one had been committed. 

Here then was a case of grievous injury, for which the 



16 

law, as I was advised, afforded no remedy. Once more let 
me ask, What is a man, so situated, to do, to reinstate him- 
self in public opinion ? Can he do any thing hut appeal to 
that public opinion, by stating and proving the truth of his 
case ? And, if that case involves a long and complicated 
state of facts, can he make that appeal otherwise than in 
print 1 Can he do less^ to answer any good purpose, than to 
circulate such a statement among that limited 'portion of the 
public, with which he particularly associates ? 
^ It must be plain, to every intelligent reader, that there is 
and can be no other effectual mode of redress, for cases be- 
yond the reach of the ordinary tribunals ; and that, in every 
case of this nature, the propriety of the proceeding must de- 
pend upon the merits and the circumstances of the particular 
case. What then was the case ? 

Was it true, or was it not, that Mr. J.Wright Boott had shown 
himself an unsuitable trustee of the family property ? This, 
unfortunately, Avas a principal question, not to be avoided in 
considering my justification. The idea of his mismanage- 
ment lay at the bottom of it. Mr. Lowell's testimony and 
statements to the jury, and his statements to other persons 
at various times, had, in effect, declared to them, without 
my knowledge at the time, or in any tangible shape for 
more than eighteen months, what he now boldly declares 
in print, namely, that there had been no mismanagement 
on the part of Mr. Boott ; — that, instead of his being a 
debtor to his father's estate, the estate was a debtor to 
him ,• — that I was informed of this by a true and complete 
account, prepared by Mr. Lowell ; — that, notwithstanding 
such knowledge, I insisted on Mr. Boott 's resignation of 
the trust ; — that my course of action in that matter, was, 
therefore, wholly unjustifiable, and could be attributed only 
to the animosity and ill feeling against Mr. Boott, which 
Mr. Lowell falsely charges me with having cherished and 
still cherishing. This had been represented, not as a par- 
donable misapprehension of the true state of the case, but as 
a wanton and malignant attack on a gentleman of high honour 
and nice feelings, in the full possession of his reason, yet 



17 

driven to take refuge in suicide, from these groundless accu- 
sations by me and by other relatives, who were thus morally 
responsible for his death. Mr. Lowell, if he had not made 
that direct statement, had, at least, lent the full weight of 
his opinion and of his testimony, in the fundamental facts 
above stated, to propagate and uphold the belief, that con- 
duct of mine, utterly inexcusable, had led to the suicide. 
I am aware that Mr. Lowell does not admit all this, but I 
shall prove, if I have not already proved, every word of it. 

Indeed, the evidence of it was distinctly before me in the 
solemn written declarations of the jurors. I had been, more- 
over, just assured by Mr. Lowell, in our correspondence, that 
there could be no mistake for him to correct, since he knew 
and meant precisely what he had said ; having, as he insisted, 
very cautiously weighed his words, in consequence of the 
delicacy of his position, and of the feeling, which he knew to 
exist in the family. [Letter from Mr. Lowell, B. p. 23.] 
What then was I to do ? What would Mr. Lowell himself 
have done, under like circumstances? Would he have per- 
mitted, — should I permit, — so gross and iinfounded a calumny 
as I assert this to be, yet resting on such authority, to go 
uncontradicted ? Should I shrink from an investigation of 
the facts, or should I court it in the only way left open for 
me ? What step could I take, adequate to the occasion and 
the end, except, since there was no remedy at law, to state 
and prove the truth of the case, not to the general public, 
but to my friends, for their private information, in the only 
remaining form, in which a statement could have due effect ? 

Was I to be silent, because a death had happened, when 
the very question was, whether I had not caused that death 
by false, unfounded and malignant charges ? If the deceased 
had, also, charged me, as Mr. Lowell said he had, with 
dishonest conduct towards him, and the living repeated and 
endorsed the charge, should the living not be held to answer 
it, nor the facts necessary to my own vindication be shown, 
because they relate incidentally to the conduct of the dead ? 
Can it be, in cases of dispute and dissension among a num- 
ber of persons concerning the conduct of one of them, who 

3 



18 

happens to die, in the midst of the controversy, that the 
survivers of his party become, thereby, privileged to make 
what misrepresentations, and to publish what calumnies 
they please, and that the survivers of the opposite party, 
however calumniated, are bound to submit in silence, on 
penalty of being held up to public execration, as wanton in- 
vaders and violators of the tomb ? Such may be Mr. Low- 
ell's peaceful philosophy, when he finds it for his interest to 
adopt it. It is not mine ; nor do I believe it will be that of 
intelligent and fair-minded readers, upon a just understand- 
ing of this case. I trust I have treated, and ever shall 
treat, the memory of the departed, with all the respect and 
tenderness, consistent with the necessity imposed upon me of 
explaining my own conduct ; but I hold that to be a mistaken 
delicacy indeed, which would sacrifice the reputation of the 
living to that of the dead, by any falsehood, dissimulation, 
or straining of the truth ; and I shall presently leave it to 
the reader to judge, whether Mr. Lowell's otherwise com- 
mendable zeal in the cause of a deceased friend, which 
happens, to be closely identified with his own, has not, some- 
times, hurried him into that unfortunate kind of mistake. 

But is it not monstrous, that I should be arraigned, hy 
Mr. Lowell, on this charge ? Who, I desire to ask, brings 
the dead into this field of controversy ? Is it I ? Mr. Lowell 
says to me, in effect, '^ You killed this unfortunate man by 
false accusations;" — and so he says to others, whenever the 
question of his death arises. I answer, '' I made no false 
accusations. I said no more than the occasion required ; said 
it not to him, but to the conveyancer, who called upon me 
for an act, which I was obliged to refuse, and to assign my 
reasons for refusing. I said nothing, even to that gentleman, 
in a harsh or off*ensive form ; and all I said, was, as you, Mr. 
Lowell, knoio, strictly true; and so I will prove. ''^ '' Oh ! no ;" 
says Mr. Lowell, ^^ you must not dare to attempt to defend 
yourself in that way — it would he a sacrilegious attack upon 
the memory of the dead I I only say, you drove your late 
brother-in-law, by false accusations, to take his own life ; and 
that you must submit to. I have a letter, besides, in which 



19 

he says what amounts to the same thing himself — a letter, 
written almost in the very act of self-destruction, and written, 
^ with great calmness, as befitted the occasion.^ " [Letter 
from Mr. Lowell, B. App. p. 60.] '' But," I answer, '' he 
was insane when he said so ; the very charges you speak 
of, against me, were the offspring of his insanity. Will 
you have the goodness to let me see the letter ? I think I 
can satisfy you, by internal evidence, of the writer's insani- 
ty." "By no means;" says Mr. Lowell, ''it is a ' sacred 
trust,' [B. App. p. 68.] and I shall show or read it only 
to such persons as I please — certainly not to you, whom my 
friend charges with a degree of dishonest conduct towards him, 
which occasioned his death." '' Then," I reply, " you com- 
pel me to prove, by other means, the fact of his insanity." 
'' Oh ! no ;" says Mr. Lowell again, " you must not attempt 
to prove that — it is attacking a man iii his grave ! And / 
assure you, as I do every body, that he had not a tinge of 
insanity about him, and that his letter ' evinces no aberra- 
tion of mind,' [Letter from Mr. Lowell, B. App. p. 60.] but 
quite the reverse ; it ' strongly tends to prove that the said 
John W. Boott was sane when the same was written.' !" 
[Lowell's affidavit, B. App. p. 68.] 

Now, I submit to the reader, whether this idea, so much 
insisted on by Mr. Lowell as good cause of public indigna- 
tion against me, namely, that nothing touching the merits 
of the question is to be inquired into, because it relates to a 
person, who is no longer in the midst of us, would not be, 
under such circumstances, positively ridiculous, were it not 
that the subject is one of most grave and melancholy 
import. 

As to the scandal of publishing family dissensions, which 
is also laid at my door, they were, in this case, unfortu- 
nately, too well known long before the death of Mr. J. Wright 
Boott. Mr. Lowell declares this, when he desires to excuse 
himself by their notoriety. [L. p. 16.] They were known 
to all those persons, at least, among whom I sent my 
pamphlet. The scandal of publishing them, to the world at 
large^ rather belongs to Mr. Lowell, than to me. 



20 

The knowledge of such a fact, among those who knew 
it, was, of course, calculated to produce unfavourable impres- 
sions against the whole family, without much discrimi- 
nation. The shocking death, which followed, had it been 
found to be the effect of insanity, would naturally have 
corrected this ; for the character, conduct, and sanity of the 
deceased were known to have been the very subjects of 
dispute. His subsequently ascertained derangement would, 
well enough, have accounted for all pre-existing difficulties. 
Mr. Lowell's interference, — I do not speak of motives, but, 
I say his interference in fact, — and the promulgation of 
his opinions, prevented this desirable result, and led 
to surmises and suspicions, in the public mind, of a most 
distressing character, infinitely more injurious, to certain 
members of the family, than any thing before known or 
suspected. 

INow, although this mischief had been done, it was not 
wholly irreparable. If it can, even at this late day, be satis- 
factorily shown, that those former dissensions were not the 
case of an ordinary family quarrel, equally discreditable, com- 
monly, to all, who are engaged in it, but that all the troubles, 
which had existed in this family, for years, arose out of the 
extravagant and unreasonable conduct of one individual, 
whose peculiar position, as holder of the common property, 
and male head of the household, was such, that his eccentric- 
ities could not but affect the whole circle, while his strange 
suspicions and unfounded charges, against one and another, 
and almost all in turn, were constantly producing extreme 
exasperation and distress, so long as he was considered a 
fully accountable being, — and if it can also be shown, that 
this extravagant demeanour was found, in the end, to be fairly 
attributable to mental derangement, I beg to ask, whether, 
in showing these facts, in my own defence, I am guilty, as 
Mr. Lowell pretends, of a scandalous offence against the 
decencies of life. In defending myself, do I not, also, 
relieve the whole family from the chief discredit of an 
otherwise disgraceful quarrel ? Do I not even vindicate the 
m^emory of the deceased from every iinputation of moral 



21 

delinquency) 1 Does this course of justification, then, de- 
serve the reprobation, with which Mr. Lowell affects to visit 
it so indignantly ? 

What, let us inquire, would have been the probable con- 
sequence, had Mr. Lowell taken a different course at the 
inquest, and a verdict of "suicide caused by i7ismiity^'' had 
been found ? From the singular nature and partial char- 
acter of the insanity, with which this unfortunate gentle- 
man was, in my belief, afflicted, it is not surprising that 
diversity of opinion about it should have existed, in his life- 
time, among different members of his family. Such cases 
in families are by no means of the rarest occurrence ; 
and they are apt enough, when they do unfortunately occur, 
to excite irritation and to occasion dissension, till the fact is 
settled ; — though I believe a case resembling this, in all its 
features, never before existed. The event, which had hap- 
pened, — a death by suicide, — was one, which, by itself, when 
no insanity had been previously suspected, is apt, by most 
minds, to be attributed to that cause. Had the facts been in- 
quired into, and an impartial jury had so found, would not all 
the family have been likely to acquiesce in that result, and 
to adopt, at last, the opinion, which had long been enter- 
tained by some of them ? To me it seems scarcely doubt- 
ful ; and the effect would have been. I believe, to heal 
the dissension by the removal of its cause. Mr. Lowell's 
interference, alone, precluded and prevented, as I shall show, 
any such probable consummation. 

Which, let me ask, then, is the real aggressor^ in respect 
to these family interests? — a stranger, who thrusts himself 
into them, and not only prevents that probable and highly 
desirable result, but chooses to attach himself to one of the 
parties, and to make himself the champion of that party at 
the expense of the other, to whose misconduct, instead of 
the insanity of the deceased, he attributes the death, — or 
one of the persons so attacked, who, in defending himself, 
removes just cause of censure from the whole family ? And 
which is most justly chargeable with harming the refutation 



22 



of the dead, — he, who declares that certain ^^ grave errors ^'^'^ 
which he is obliged to admits [L. p. 165.] were the willful 
acts of a sane man, or I, who ascribe them to a degree 
of mental obliquity and perverseness, on certain subjects, 
amounting to a peculiar species of insanity ? 

Mr. Lowell, indeed, throughout his book, accuses me of 
charging Mr. J. Wright Boott with intentional falsehood and 
fraud. Can any thing be more unjust or untrue ? I not 
only made no such charge, but I took the utmost pains to 
prevent even an inference^ from facts, which the question of 
his suitableness for a trustee compelled me to state, preju- 
dicial to his character as a man of honor and upright inten- 
tion. Let me cite one or two extracts from my former 
pamphlet in proof of this : — 

" I have expressed, above, my conviction of Mr. Wright Boott's 
partial insanity, in the last years of his life. I have alluded, also, 
to his incompetency as a safe depositary of trust property — 
which subject will carry me back to a date long before the idea 
of his insanity, on any subject, had distinctly occurred to me. I 
have since been led to doubt, whether there was not a tinge of it 
even at that early period. But whether there was, or not, I shall be 
obliged to state facts, showing such a singular disregard of the 
duties of a trustee, as commonly understood and practised, that I 
desire, in the outset, to make known the opinion, which I uniformly 
entertained and expressed of him in one particular, lest my remarks 
should otherwise be misconstrued into an unmanly attack on the honor 
of the dead. My business lies with a gentleman, who is alive, and 
well able to defend himself, if I do him wrong. That I shall care- 
fully endeavour not to do. I do not desire, nor intend, to attack even 
that gentleman — unless it be considered an attack to exhibit facts and 
proofs, adduced in self-vindication, which may be found at variance 
with his statements, or, at least, lead to inferences different from his 
own. But in respect of the late Mr. Wright Boott, whom I am 
reluctantly compelled to speak of as perfectly incompetent for the 
office of a trustee, I entertained for him, during an acquaintance of 
more than twenty years, a very high regard, and never felt a feeling 
of unkindness towards him, except during a short period of great 
rudeness on his part, before I had become impressed with the belief 
of his insanity. I take pleasure, therefore, in recording the fact, 
notwithstanding what I shall be obliged to say concerning his man- 
ao-ement of trust property, that, from the first to the last of our inter- 
course, I considered him a man of unblemished integrity, and a high, 
I may say even chivalrous, sense of honour. But he had great pecul- 
iarities — among them, that of seeming to consider the whole family 
property his own, to deal with as he pleased — investing it accordingly, 
not as a trustee, but in his own private name — using it in unwarrant- 



28 

able speculations — which greatly impaired it, and at one time threat- 
ened its total loss — rendering no account of it to any body, and in fact 
keeping none — consulting no other heir^^specting it — and, in general, 
without any business habits whatever, holding himself above all the 
ordinary responsibilities of a legal trust, on the due execution of 
which others were dependent. But all this, which it required a long 
and intimate acquaintance with him to understand the causes of, I 
attribute to peculiarities of character, which amounted at last, if not 
at first, in my judgement, to mental hallucination." [B. p. 8.] 

And again, after having stated some of the facts, which 
went to show his mismanagement of the property, and his 
incompetency as a trustee, apart from the question of insan- 
ity, I said : — 

" And yet I desire to repeat, that this incompetency did not arise 
from want of integrity, or of high-toned feeling, nor from want of 
intelligent perceptions ; but from want of judgement, and want of accu- 
rate business habits, and total negligence of accounts, coupled with 
certain peculiar ideas, which always confounded generosity and 
justice, and certain extraordinary notions concerning his own rights 
and powers over the property of his father's estate. Far from being 
entirely selfish in his principles of action, it was, probably, a desire 
to maintain the old firm, for the benefit of the family, as he conceived, 
which induced him to embark the estate in trade," &c. 

[Here follow like excuses, for other particular facts, which had been stated as 
evidence of mismanagement.] 

" And so other good and generous motives, operating in connexion 
with his own peculiar views of affairs, caused him. in many other ways, 
to waste the family property, dealing with it always as if it were his 
own, to do with as he pleased, and appropriating it even to the 
security, or payment, of his own personal debts, without even con- 
sulting the other heirs upon the subject." [B. p. 50.] 

Passages of this tenor might be multiplied, and not a line, 
or a word, I am confident, can be found of a contrary ten- 
dency. Whenever truth and self-defence compelled me to 
state a fact, from which readers, unacquainted with the 
peculiar character of the deceased, might possibly infer, if it 
stood unexplained, that he was not only negligent, but 
criminal, not only eccentric, but vicious, I took pains to 
point out a cause and a motive, consistent with the integrity 
of purpose, which I every where ascribed to him ; and every 
error of his life, referred to by me, was set down to that 
idiosyncrasy, which marked him from the beginning, and 
which terminated at last, if it did not originate, in such posi- 



24 

tive derangement, on certain subjects, as made him, in my 
judgement, no longer an accountable being. 

What shall we say, then, to the candour and justice of Mr. 
Lowell, in such passages as this ? 

" That a generous and high minded purpose of this sort should be 
turned into a weapon against Mr. Boott, to bear out the imputation 
that he had knowingly defrauded the heirs, and sustained the fraud 
hy Ids own oath,, is one of the most cruel perversions of truth in the 
whole pamphlet." [L. p. 34.] 

" But even if Mr. Boott credited all he had ever received, and 
charged no more than he had paid, there was one way left, in which 
he might defraud the estate, and that was by charging the estate with 
the stocks on hand at a higher price than he had a right to do. Mr. 
Brooks does not fail to avail himself of the opportunity of making 
this imputation also." [L. p. 66.] 

" Is it not deplorable to see a gentleman, in Mr. Brooks's position, 
groping about in utter darkness and ignorance, to find some excuse 
for attacking the honour of the living and the dead^ [L. p. 72.] 

" Is it to be believed, unless Mr. Brooks means to impeach the 
character of Mr. Kirk Boott also, that that gentleman would have 
recommended, or allowed to be selected, a person, Avho had been 
guilty of the moral delinquencies attributed by Mr. Brooks to Mr. J. 
Wright Boott ? [L. p. 102.] 

For Mr. Lowell's satisfaction, as well as that of the 
reader, I make it known, that the Italics, in these sen- 
tences, are my own — ^for Mr. Lowell is very punctilious and 
sensitive on the subject of Italics. [L. p. 83-4, 204.] 

(Quotations of this description might be made to a great 
extent from the pages of the "Reply." Is the charge just, 
fair, or true ? 

I defy Mr. Lowell to point out a single passage of my 
former pamphlet, which, being fairly taken in connexion 
with its context, and with the foregoing extracts from my 
pamphlet, and with other passages in it of like tenor, can 
justify this charge. 



25 



CHAPTER III. 

A LIMITED PUBLICATION MY LAST RESORT. A SINGULAR MIS- 
TAKE BY MR. LOWELL, 

Not content with thus systematically misrepresenting me 
as a re viler of the honour and honesty of the dead, nor with 
constantly repeating the idea that my whole course of action, 
after the decease of Mr. J. Wright Boott, was directed to the 
finding of an excuse for publishing these defamations, Mr. 
Lowell even goes so far as to invent, or imagine, a fact or 
two, for the purpose of giving colour to these suggestions. 
Mrs. Lyman, he represents as a mere puppet in the hands of 
Mr. William Boott and myself, made, first, to set up an ap- 
peal against the probate of her brother's will, and afterwards 
to withdraw it, only to suit our supposed game of showing off 
a sham inquiry at law into the fact of Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
sanity, in order that the final failure of a trial, seemingly 
through her fault, but really, as Mr. Lowell suggests, at our 
bidding, might furnish the long-looked-for excuse for a pub- 
lication. [L. p. 210.] 

In confirmation of this statement, which is utterly desti- 
tute of foundation, he asserts, as a fact, that I, at first, inter- 
posed an appeal myself, as ^^ trustee under the will of Mr. 
Kirk Boott of Lowell," in which capacity, he correctly 
states, I had no legal interest, to set aside Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
will. This, he thinks, upon the whole, could not have been 
a blunder of counsel, ''after several months of preparation," 
which he supposes to have been expended in the cause, but 
rather attributes it to a deep design of mine, (in which my 
counsel must, of course, have participated.) to enter a ficti^ 
tious appeal, in order that it might be defeated on technical 
grounds, in the higher court, and so ''a better apology 
might thus have been afforded for Mr. Brooks's appeal to the 
public." [L. p. 209.] Now will it be believed of Mr. Low- 



26 

eil, who so piques himself upon his accuracy^ and never 
admits a mistake, that his whole course of remark on this 
subject is founded upon a supposed fact, which never hap- 
pened ? 

Upon this point, and the whole subject of my actions 
and motives, so far as they could be known to others, with 
whom I was confidentially dealing as my counsel in these 
matters, I now submit the following letter : — 

LETTER FROM Messrs. GARDINER and BARTLETT. 

Boston, March 31, 1848. 
Edward Brooks, Esq. 
Dear Sir, 

In compliance with your request of the 2 2d inst., we make tke 
following statement. 

In the summer of 1845, we were retained by you as counsel, and 
in the fall of that year, we were retained as counsel for Mrs. Lyman 
also, — to oppose the probate of the will of the late Mr. J. W. Boott. 

The ground of the proposed opposition was the alleged legal inca- 
pacity of the testator to make the will in question, by reason of a 
partial insanity, supposed to have aflfected him in that particular act. 

Mr. Franklin Dexter acted with us, as counsel, for a short time ; 
but he was about going to Europe, and was retiring from professional 
engagements. We consider his connexion with the case to have 
ended with the hearing in the Probate Court, which he was present 
at, but took no active part in. 

You were urgent to have the case brought to a hearing as early as 
possible ; but it was not in fact heard till late in October, although 
the will had been filed for probate in March. 

Before we were spoken to in behalf of Mrs. Lyman, and while 
acting exclusively as your counsel, we had several conferences with 
you and with Mr. William Boott. Most of the facts, bearing on the 
question of insanity, vvdiich you have since stated in a printed form, 
were then communicated to us, and with them some, as within your 
or his personal knowledge, which you have not thought proper to 
disclose in your printed statement, but which tended strongly, in our 
opinion, to corroborate the other proof of Mr. J. W. Boott's derange- 
ment of mind on certain subjects. Your own belief of the testator's 
monomania was always expressed to us in the strongest terms ; and 
so was Mr. William Boott's ; — and from the facts stated to us it 
appeared to be well warranted. 

We were very early informed, that neither you, nor Mr. William 
Boott, desired to alter the disposition of the property, except on Mrs. 
Lyman's account, who was represented as hardly dealt by, and in 
need of all she might be entitled to. Your personal objects, in pro- 
posing to contest the will, as made known to us, were, to compel the 
production, by Mr. Lowell, of a letter written by Mr. J. W. Boott, 
shortly before his death, enclosing the will, and said to contain certain 



27 

charges against yon ; and also to establisli, judicially, the insanity of 
the writer^ as the best answer to those charges, and to other imputa- 
tions respecting your conduct and motives. 

Shortly before the hearing in the Probate Court, we were, jointly 
with Mr. Dexter, consulted, for the first time, by yourself and Mr. 
William Boott, in behalf of Mrs. Lyman. We all met with you and 
Mr. WiUiam Boott, by appointment, for that purpose. After a consult- 
ation of some length, we concurred in the opinion that, viewing Mrs. 
Lyman's case professionally, and ^vithout regard to mere matters of 
feeling, which counsel could not judge of, hers was a proper case for 
the real trial of the validity of the will in the Supreme Judicial Court, 
where the final trial would necessarily be, according to the usual 
course of practice ; and upon the facts stated to us, as capable of 
proof, including those confidentially communicated, we were all of 
opinion, that a jury would probably be satisfied, that the testator was 
not of sound mind, in the sense of the law, when he made his will, 
cutting her off from any share of his property ; and if so, that it 
would be set aside in her favour. 

We were informed, that Mrs. Lyman had requested this consulta- 
tion on her account ; and we saw, then, or afterwards, a letter from 
her to you, dated Oct. 21, 1845, directing you to employ us as her 
counsel, and desiring us to understand that it was her ow^n voluntary 
act. 

We had understood, before, that neither Mr. William Boott, nor your- 
self, proposed to take, for your own benefit, any share of the property, 
if the will were set aside. You were, besides, considered to be material 
witnesses on the question of insanity. Hence it w^as arranged, that 
your rights and interests in the property should be assigned to Mrs. 
Lyman. A deed for that purpose was, soon after, prepared, and 
was executed by yourself and Mrs. Brooks, and by Mr. William 
Boott, conveying your respective rights, as heirs at law of Mr. J. W. 
Boott, in trust for Mrs. Lyman ; — which deed would take effect when 
executed by and delivered to the trustee therein named. 

This consummation was withheld till after the preliminary hearing 
in the Probate Court, in order to preserve your right to appear there 
in person, as you preferred to do, for the single purpose of calling for 
the letter above mentioned. There was no previous arrangement, as 
to the particular right, or capacity, in which you should make that 
call ; but the course proposed was, that you, as a nominal party, 
should hear the proof offered of the execution of the will, and intro- 
duce evidence of the testator's insanity, sufficient for a prima facie 
case, and then call for the letter, both as a paper containing state- 
ments, respecting yourself, which would have a material bearing on 
the point of insanity, and also as a paper accompanying, endorsing 
and republishing the will, with directions concerning the disposition 
of property. The sole object of the hearing, on your part, was to 
present, on this double ground, the question, whether a production of 
the letter, by Mr. Lowell, either as a party, or as a witness, should, 
or should not, be ordered in that court. Upon its decision, either 
way, your appearance was to be withdrawn, and an appearance 
entered for Mrs. Lyman, as the real party having a pecuniary inter- 
est, and intending to try the validity of the will. 



28 

The hearing took place on the 24th, 25th, and 28th of October, 
1845, and was conducted conformably to this previous arrangement. 

Mr. Lowell has fallen into an error in stating, at page 209 of his 
pamphlet, that, after the judge had ruled the points in his favour, 
" the learned counsel, who appeared for the remonstrants, stated, that 
he would withdraw all opposition in their behalf individually, and 
enter an appeal to the Supreme Court in the name of Edward 
Brooks, trustee under the will of Mr. Kirk Boott of Lowell." 

No such notice was given. No appeal was ever suggested, or thought 
of, by either of us, at that hearing, except for Mrs. Lyman. 

Mr. Lowell appears to have confounded two distinct matters, — 
one occurring on the 24th, and the other on the 28th, of October. 
This we are enabled to state with certainty, on comparing our present 
recollections with the very full and accurate minutes taken at the 
time, in which the fact appears, distinctly, as now stated. 

On the 24th of October, after the subscribing witnesses of the will 
had completed their testimony, the judge asking who appeared to 
oppose it, Mr. Bartlett, at first, answered, on your suggestion, " I 
appear for Edward Brooks, trustee for the children of Kirk Boott." 
Mr. Lowell thereupon remarked, that "as Mr. Kirk Boott died 
before Mr. Wright Boott, Mr. Brooks can have no interest in this 
property as trustee for his children." Mr. Bartlett said, "then I 
appear for Edward Brooks and wife," — and immediately called Mr. 
Kobert C. Hooper to the stand. Mr. Green, however, requested to 
be examined first, which was agreed to. 

After his and Mr. Hooper's examination, which latter was at some 
length, the intended call for the letter was made. This led to a dis- 
cussion of the legal rights of the parties on that point, which continued 
till the adjournment of the court. 

On the following day, (Oct. 25,) it was resumed ; and after much 
argument on both sides, the judge ruled, that Mr. Lowell had such 
an interest, under the will, that he was not compellable to be exam- 
ined as a witness, or to produce any paper in that capacity ; — and 
that, in order to bring, properly, before the court the further question, 
which had been argued, whether he might not be required to file the 
letter as a testamentary paper, or otherwise to produce it, as a party 
in the cause, by reason of its supposed bearing on the question of 
insanity, an affidavit of the facts and a written motion ought, first, to 
be filed. The further hearing was then adjourned to Oct. 28. 

On that day, affidavits on each side being filed, the question of 
ordering the letter to be produced was submitted, without further 
argument ; and the judge ruled against the motion. 

Mr. Bartlett then gave notice, that Mr. and Mrs. Brooks withdrew 
from the cause. 

A question thereupon arose about costs, which were, at first, 
claimed by Mr. Lowell, but afterwards waived. As counsel for Mrs. 
Lyman, we thought it desirable to have this trifling point distinctly 
settled, before any other step was taken, lest you should be objected 
to as a witness in the Supreme Court, on account of your liability for 
costs in the court below. 

When that point was finally disposed of, Mr, Bartlett gave notice, 



29 

that lie would now enter an appearance in the cause for Mrs. Mary- 
Lyman, but should offer no further evidence, nor any remarks on 
that, which had been introduced. 

The judge then said, that, upon the testimony of the subscribing 
witnesses, he should allow the will, remarking, however, that his 
decree was rsiiher pro forma, as some evidence of hallucination had 
been shown. 

Mr. Bartlett, upon that, gave notice, that Mrs. Lyman would enter 
an appeal in due season. 

One of Mr. Lowell's counsel then announced the resignation of his 
trust as executor ; and Mr. Lowell himself added, that he desired, also, 
to resign the office of special administrator, to which he had been for- 
merly appointed. 

Some conversation followed respecting a successor to the latter of- 
fice, and it was agreed, among the counsel, that Mr. F. C. Loring 
might be appointed. 

This ended the proceedings in the Probate Court. 

The only allusion, in the course of them, to any supposed interest 
of yours, as trustee for Mr. K. Boott's children, was, as above stated, 
at the first entry of an appearance, (October 24,) which was regarded 
by us as merely formal, and to make you a temporary party, in a 
hearing not expected to decide any thing, except, whether the judge 
of probate would, or would not, order the letter to be filed. The only 
notice given of an intended appeal was, as above stated, on the 28th 
of October, in the name and behalf of Mrs. Lyman, the only party, 
whose pecuniary interest was considered by us to be at stake, and for 
whom we were to conduct the real trial, pursuant to the previous ar- 
rangement. 

Her appeal was accordingly entered, within the thirty days allowed 
by law ; and such further steps were taken, in preparing for the trial, 
as her counsel thought advisable. 

The most important of these was the filing of a bill of discovery 
against Mr. Lowell, to compel, in that form, the production of the let- 
ter. That bill was filed January 17, 1846. Mr. Lowell's plea, in 
avoidance of the discovery sought, was not filed till the 26th of March 
following. We doubted, whether it would be sustained, and were de- 
sirous to bring it to an early hearing, thinking that a previous know- 
ledge of the contents of the letter might aid, materially, in preparing 
for the main trial. There was no opportunity, however, for a hearing 
on the plea at the March term. It necessarily went over to another ; 
and the main cause went with it, waiting the disposal of this prelimi- 
nary question. 

In regard to any agency of yours, or of Mr. William Boott's, about 
the cause, after the appeal, the facts, so far as known to us, are as 
follows : — 

Mrs. Lyman, living out of town, communicated with her counsel 
only by an occasional note, or message. We considered ourselves 
charged with the general conduct of the case, and empowered to take 
such steps towards it as we thought for her interest, regarding its pe- 
cuniary result, and every point affecting herself. We sometimes con- 
versed with you, as the friend nearest at hand, when information was 



30 

wanted. We do not remember to have seen or heard from Mr. Wil- 
liam Boott on the subject at any time pending the appeal. Mrs. Ly- 
man's signature to the bill of discovery was obtained by you, at our 
request. We did not consider either you or Mr. William Boott as 
having any interest in the suit, except as it was, incidentally, desirable 
to each that Mr. J. W. Boott's insanity should be established by a 
verdict. 

After the continuance of the cause to the November term of 1846, 
the first communication we had from any body on the subject was a 
note, dated September 25, addressed to us jointly, from Mrs. Lyman, 
written upon her return, as we understood, from a visit at Northamp- 
ton, to apprise us of her " change of purpose with regard to a further 
prosecution of the suit upon Mr. J. W. Boott's will." The reasons 
assigned had no relation to the merits of the question, in a legal point 
of view, but turned, entirely, on points of feeling, in regard to the 
memory of her deceased brother, which counsel could appreciate, but 
could not advise upon. 

We have, since, seen notes, dated the 25th and 27th of the same 
September, from Mrs. Lyman to you, and to Mr. William Boott, in- 
forming each of you of her altered determination. 

You consulted us, shortly after, to know whether there was any 
way, in which you could be reinstated as a party in the cause, or oth- 
erwise bring the question of Mr. J. W. Boott's sanity to the test of 
a legal investigation. We advised you that we saw none ; and that if 
Mrs. Lyman adhered to her present determination, (which, however, 
could not be carried into effect until the court should next sit, in No- 
vember,) the appeal must be withdrawn, and the will be thereby set up. 
You gave us to understand, repeatedly, pending this controversy, that 
you should be very unwilling to advise, or influence her, respecting 
the suit, lest she might act, or be supposed to act, from regard to your 
position and wishes, rather than her own. 

Before the sitting of the court, we received a second note from 
Mrs. Lyman, repeating her desire that the suit should be dismissed. 
Both the appeal and the bill of discovery were dismissed accordingly, 
early in the November term. 

We have never doubted, and do not now doubt, that Mrs. Lyman 
acted upon her own judgement, after taking the advice of counsel and 
friends, when she made her appeal ; nor that she acted upon her own 
views and feelings, exclusively, and from the disinterested motives she 
assigned, when she discontinued it. Mr. Lowell's suggestions that she 
may have been guided, in this, by your advice, or that of Mr. William 
Boott, — that she moved throughout in mere accordance with your 
or his desire, — and that there never was any serious intention of bring- 
ing the case to trial, are, so far as we have any means of knowing, or 
forming an opinion, quite unfounded and mistaken. Among our 
means of knowledge are several notes of instruction, or inquiry, re- 
ceived by one of us from Mrs. Lyman, in her own hand-writing, dur- 
ing the pendency of the suit. 

We are bound to make the same remark concerning his suggestion 
that you always intended an appeal to the public through the press, 
and were, from the first, only seeking an opportunity, or excuse for it. 

The fact, known to us, is, that, when Mrs, Lyman determined to 



witMraw her appeal, you expressed to us your regret at the loss of 
the opportunity you had counted upon to set certain matters right, 
through the means of a public trial ; but you also expressed a degree 
of satisfaction, that you might now consider yourself fairly excused 
from the necessity of making disagreeable disclosures, with that view, 
by circumstances beyond your control, and for which you were nowise 
responsible. We had no doubt, at that time, that the whole contro- 
versy was ended in every form. 

It wa.s not till after the dismissal of Mrs. Lyman's suit, and a day 
or two before your first letter to Mr. Lowell, dated November 28, 
1846, that you told us of information, as just received by you, respect- 
ing testimony of Mr. Lowell at the inquest, which did not appear 
in the official return, and which you thought presented a new state of 
facts, requiring some action on your part, in reference to Mr. Lowell 
personally. After consulting us, you expressed your determination to 
call on Mr. Lowell, himself, to state what his testimony Avas, and to fol- 
low it up by such further action as his answer might suggest. It 
seemed to us possible that this course might lead to mutual explana- 
tions, calculated to remove all difficulty between you. The corres- 
pondence, afterwards printed, speaks for itself. 

We may properly add, that, in the many conferences held with you, 
from the time of our being first retained as your counsel, we do not 
remember, or believe, that the idea of publishing any thing, otherwise 
than by a trial, respecting the unfortunate dissensions, in which you 
had been involved, was ever suggested, until the period of that cor- 
respondence ; and then it appeared to arise from the belief you ex- 
pressed, that Mr. Lowell had not dealt by you fairly and frankly ; that 
you had been injured in consequence in the estimation of others ; 
that he had no disposition to relieve you from that consequence, or to 
make any explanations ; and that, in the absence of any legal remedy 
for such a case, there was no other course left for you than that, which 
you took. 

Regretting much that your correspondence with Mr. Lowell did not 
lead to a different result, we are, very respectfully, 
Your obedient servants, 

W. H. GARDINER, 
SIDNEY BARTLETT. 

This letter requires no comment. But the passage it 
refers to, in Mr. Lowell's pamphlet, relative to certain pro- 
ceedings in the Probate Court, is remarkable enough to be 
quoted at large. It is this : — 

'• On the hearing before the Probate Court, after the judge had ruled 
the points, there raised, in my favour, the learned counsel, who appear- 
ed for the remonstrants, stated that he would withdraw all further 
opposition in their behalf individually, and enter an appeal to the 
Supreme Court in the name of Edward Brooks, trustee under the 
will of Mr. Kirk Boott, of Lowell. This announcement was certainly 



32 

an astounding one. Mr. Kirk Boott died eight years before his 
brother, and of course could not be one of his heirs-at-law. Was this 
a blunder ? It certainly seemed to me hardly credible that it was so, 
after several months of preparation, with the aid of counsel, Avhose 
learning and astuteness are well known. Was it not rather a nominal 
appeal, of which it was expected that I should take advantage to de- 
feat them at the trial ? It might then have been said, that they had 
been ready to meet the question before the Supreme Court, and that 
I had evaded it on merely technical grounds. A better apology might 
thus have been afforded for Mr. Brooks's appeal to the public. 

However this may have been, I had it evidently in my power to 
secure the establishment of Mr. Boott's will, by simply allowing them 
to appeal, in the form they had themselves proposed. But I remem- 
bered what Mr. Boott himself would have wished me to do under 
such circumstances ; and, following his own precedent, I threw aside 
the immunity thus offered to me, and informed the court, that the ap- 
peal in that form would not lie. The appeal was then entered in the 
name of Mrs. Mary Lyman." [L. p. 209.] 

The self-complacency of this paragraph is amusing enough, 
when it comes to be seen, by the foregoing letter and the 
original minutes therein referred to, that Mr. Lowell is, all 
the while, mistaken in his fact. He has mixed up occur- 
rences that were four da^^s apart, and had no relation to each 
other. A remark made in reference to a proposed first ap- 
pearance, for the purposes of that particular hearing, he 
ascribes to the proposed entry of a final appeal, after the hear- 
ing was over. The difference is, that, whether I were al- 
lowed to appear, at the hearing, in one capacity or another, 
rightly or wrongly, was totally immaterial. All I wanted 
was a temporary standing in the Probate Court, that would 
authorize me to move for the production of the letter ; and, if 
no objection had been taken, then, to my appearing as trus- 
tee, however irregular that might have been, it would have 
answered all my purposes perfectly well. But, when it came 
to the case of an appeal, it was fundamental that the appeal 
should be rightly taken by a proper party. Otherwise it 
would be a nullity. 

As trustee under the will of Mr. Kirk Boott, of Lowell, I 
could not appeal — and never proposed to — nor in fact did 
any body appeal, or propose to appeal, as appears by the 
foregoing letter, except Mrs. Lyman, in her own right. Yet 
Mr. Lovrell asserts otherwise in the most positive terms, and, 



83 

by an anachronism, which transposes a certain remark from 
the 24th to the 28th of October, and by some other species 
of license, which affixes the remark to a different event from 
that, to Avhich it belonged, contrives to make a right of 
property apparently dependant upon it, when, in truth, at 
the time the remark was made, nothing depended upon it 
but the question, whether, in point of form, I should call for 
the letter in one person's name and behalf, or another's. 

Having thus fabricated a basis, out of a mere error of 
memory, he proceeds to build upon it a theory, concerning 
my motive in claiming the supposed appeal underya/se colonics ; 
and, what is curious enough, he not only remembers with 
perfect distinctness, and asserts with characteristic positive- 
ness, that I did so claim the appeal, but he remembers also 
the high-toned feeling, which induced him, on that occasion, 
to interpose and correct what he saw to be a mistake, fatal to 
the interest of his opponents. ''/ rememhered^^^ says he, 
^' what Mr. Boott himself would have wished me to do un- 
der such circumstances ; and following his otvn pj^ecede^it, I 
threw aside the immunity thus offered 77ie, and informed the 
court that the appeal in that fo?mi would not lie ".' This 
was truly a magnificent generosity. How unfortunate that 
it should turn out to have been only a dream ! 

Such an instance of mis-recollection in a gentleman, who 
is so ready to charge inaccuracy upon others, and so unac- 
customed to admit the possibility of any mistake of his own, 
is the more unaccountable, as the hearing in the Probate 
Court was quite a modern transaction, in which he took an 
active part and the strongest interest. I dwell upon it, how- 
ever, not so much for its own importance, as for the sake of 
the illustration it affords, that Mr. Lowell is quite as likely as 
his neighbours to mis-remember some older facts, that did not 
deeply concern him at the time, and perhaps more likely than 
they to add a little imagination to his memory. What would 
he have said of me, were we to change places in this mat- 
ter ? One may easily imagine, by what he does say in cases 
of error far less remarkable. If I may be allowed to try my 



34 

hand at an imitation, I think we should have seen something 
after this fashion. 

^' It is a very important question, what degree of reliance 
is to be placed upon a statement so deliberately made and so 
circumstantial in its details." [L. p. 95.] "It throws some 
light upon the accuracy of Mr. Brooks, an accuracy vital to 
almost every issue he has raised." [L. p. 123.] " Mr. Brooks 
is wrong, as usual, both in his facts and his law." [L. p. 72.] 
" With his usual accuracy" [L. p. 93.] he confounds an ap- 
pearance in a cause with the claim of an appeal — a request 
•^to be heard on a call for a letter, with the demand of a statute 
right to vacate a decree. " So much for Mr. Brooks's laVxT. 
Now for his facts." [L. p. 73.] He asserts positively, that 
I announced my intention to appeal as '' trustee under the 
will of Mr. Kirk Boott of Lowell." [L. p. 209.] I never did 
any such thing. Nobody proposed an appeal but Mrs. Lyman. 
A remark was made about my appearing as such trustee to 
call for a letter, and he audaciously describes it as claiming in 
that capacity a final appeal of the cause. It was made on 
the 24th of October, and '' Mr. Brooks has the coolness" 
[L. p. 92.] to speak of it as if it were made on the 28th. But 
*' this contempt for chronology is characteristic of Mr. Brooks's 
mind." [L. p. 193.] Besides, he not only perfectly remembers 
a fact, which never happened, but he remembers it with a cir- 
cumstance. He calls to mind the sentiments of magnanimity, 
which filled his own bosom, and overflowed from his lips, 
upon the occasion of an event, which he himself has invent- 
ed. '' This requires a peculiar constitution of mind. To 
me it would be impossible." [L. p. 12.] He goes even so far 
as to build consequences upon his imaginary reminiscence. 
He sees in it a motive of cunning contrivance on my 
part, to forge an excuse, a year or two before its time, for a 
publication, already conceived by its author, and designed to 
be launched at some distant day to calumniate the dead. Now 
when such grave charges are founded upon such egregious 
blunders, the man who makes them cannot be allowed " to 
shelter himself behind his own ignorance." [L. p. 44.] Fee- 
bleness of memory, and incompetency to understand legal 



35 

proceedings, are qualities, '' which may be pardonable in 
themselves ; but a gentleman who is afflicted with them has no 
right to convert them into weapons against his neighbours." 
[L. p. 44.] " Such aspersions may ansAver a temporary 
purpose ; fortunately they always vanish before the first ray 
of truth : — 

' No falsehood can endure 
Touch of celestial temper, but returns 
Of force to its own likeness.' " [L. p. 143.] 

This, or something near it, is what Mr. Lowell would have 
been likely to say of 7ne, under similar circumstances. It is 
a specimen of his mode of dealing with such matters, scarcely 
over-coloured, for it is nearly all his own language. 

Now I shall not follow the example he sets, by imputing 
to him habitual and universal inaccuracy, in consequence of 
this, and of other mo?^e important mistakes, which will be 
pointed out in the course of these remarks. On the con- 
trary, I readily concede to him general habits of exactness 
in business, clear perceptions, and a good memory, but not 
papal infallibility. 

Neither shall I follow him in assuming a tone, which 
might seem to arrogate to myself some unusual perfection of 
human faculties. But, I trust I shall make it appear, that, 
in matters of business, I generally know what I am about, 
and remember the substance, at least, of what is important 
to be remembered. When a mistake is pointed out to me, 
if it really be a mistake, — for many, charged by Mr. Lowell, 
are his mistakes and not mine, — I shall not only frankly admit 
it, but do what I can to repair it ; and then ask the reader 
to consider, after all proper corrections are made, how far the 
substantial merits of the case are affected. 

Perhaps, in this connexion, and before proceeding to the 
main topics of discussion, I may as well notice some of the 
most striking of the errors, or supposed errors, of my former 
pamphlet, which Mr. Lowell holds up with such an air of 
triumph to his readers, in proof that my statements, gene- 
rally, cannot be relied on. I do not understand that he 
intends, any where, to impeach my veracity. Indeed, it is 



36 

remarkable, that he does not undertake, except, I believe, in 
one single instance, and in that he will presently find him- 
self much in the wrong, — to contradict my report of any 
of his own conversations with me, or remarks made in my 
presence, though many are referred to ; — a tacit admission, 
one would think, that my memory cannot be, habitually, 
quite so inaccurate in such matters, as he would have it 
believed. He, nevertheless, makes this sweeping charge 
of gross habitual inaccuracy and defective memory, [L. 
p. 109, et passim.] ; and couples it with the allegation that 
nearly all the important facts, stated in my pamphlet, rest 
upon my own memory without further proof, [L. p. 81.] ; 
and, consequently, that none of its statements can be trusted. 
We shall see, as we proceed, how much, or how little, that 
is essential to the merits of this controversy, does really 
depend on my unassisted memory ; and how far that is 
successfully impeached. But this is matter for another 
chapter. 



CHAPTEE IV. 

MY LETTER TO MR. WELLS. 

The most remarkable instance of plain mistake, which 
has been pointed out, is in what I supposed, at the time 
of preparing my pamphlet, to be the exact language of part 
of a letter to Mr. Wells, which I intended to extract. I took 
it from a supposed copy in my own possession. Mr. Lowell, 
having obtained the original from Mr. Wells, has printed 
the whole letter, and I believe correctly. He has also 
printed, in parallel columns, to make the dissimilarity as 
conspicuous as possible, 1. The extract, which I had made, 
consisting oi four sentences, as they stand in my copy, with 
the common concluding words of a letter, '' very truly 



37 

yours, &c." — 2. The same sentences, as he says they stand in 
the original, addi?ig tiuo otliej^ sentences before the conclud- 
ing words, ''yours, <fcc.," and adding, a/if er that, a postscript. 
Hence, the one citation is about twice the length of the 
other ,' and since I had spoken of my extract as the conclud- 
ing part of a letter, and had added the words, "very truly 
yours, &c." the difference certainly seems, at the first look, 
quite unaccountable. 

The sight of it, on Mr. Lowell's page, immediately brought 
to mind a circumstance, not adverted to, at the time of my 
making the quotation, as affecting the four sentences in 
question. 

The variance happened in this way. The letter itself 
was very hastily written ; — its style shows that ; — and it was 
immediately sent, without the precaution of taking a copy. 
More than a year afterwards, it came to be alluded to in a 
correspondence, which had arisen between Mr. Wells and 
Mr. William Boott, in the months of November and Decem- 
ber, 1843 ; and, in consequence of some remark about it, 
Mr. Wells sent the letter to Mr. William Boott, for his inspec- 
tion. Mr. Boott, afterwards, mentioned the circumstance to 
me, in consequence of the question, which had arisen between 
him and Mr. Wells. My attention being thus drawn to it, 
I requested him to let me have the letter for a short time, 
intending to make a copy. Mr. Boott, accordingly handed 
it to me. I had proceeded in the making of a copy through 
nearly the whole letter, (Avhich is a pretty long one,) and as 
far as the end of ihe first of the four sentences now in ques- 
tion, when, being interrupted, I put the copy into my desk, 
and the original into my pocket. Soon after, Mr. Boott 
called at my office, and informed me that Mr. Wells had 
asked for a return of the letter. Not wishing to detain it 
a moment under such circumstances, nor reflecting that 
it would leave me with a copy not quite complete, I im- 
mediately gave it up to Mr. Boott. A day or two after- 
wards, on taking the copy from my desk, and seeing where 
I had left off, I added, from memory, the three next sen- 
tences, being all that referred to money ^natters, and of 



38 

which I thought I could recall the language, as well as the 
ideas. Of the residue, Avhich I thought lay entirely in the 
postscript, I merely made a memorandum, without undertak- 
ing to set down the words. 

This is the explanation of the way, in which the discre- 
pance arose ; and, in looking at my copy, four years after- 
wardsj when I was preparing my pamphlet, it did not occur 
to me that there was any part of it, which had not been 
literally copied, except the part referred to in the memoran- 
dum of the postscript at its foot. I therefore took the four 
sentences, which I wished to use, not doubting that they 
conformed, precisely, to the original. 

Now on looking at the whole letter, and adverting to the 
occasion, upon which I referred to it, it will be seen, that the 
only subject of fair comparison lies in the four sentences, 
which 1 intended to extract. They are the only parts of the 
letter, which have any reference to my pecuniary dealings 
with Mr. Wells ; and it was solely upon that subject that I 
referred to the letter at all, in a note, the object of which 
was to show, that I had not intended to act oppressively to- 
wards Mr. Wells, as had been represented, concerning a cer- 
tain m^ortgage. [B. p. 137.] In respect to my breach of in- 
tercourse with Mr. Wells, and its causes, I purposely alluded 
to them only in the most general terms, and said, expressly, 
that, '^ whether I was right or wrong, in taking the notice of 
this, which I did, is a point, which I am not anxious to clear 
up, it being a matter of feeling, depending on circumstances 
requiring a long explanation, and which, perhaps, others, af- 
ter all, might not appreciate ; but I should be sorry to be 
thought, by my friends, guilty of the meanness and injustice 
of using my power as a creditor to do an essential injury to 
an old friend, because a difference had arisen between us. It 
is on this point only, that I wish to correct misrepresenta- 
tion." [B. p. 138.] Accordingly, after stating the other facts 
in relation to it, I said, '' I concluded a letter, written in no 
unfriendly spirit towards Mr. Wells, (though I spoke of Mr. 
Wright Boott in it, under the provocation of the moment, in 
harsher terms than I should now deliberately approve,) in the 



39 

following words," [B. p. 138.] setting out the quotation in 
question, which I thought to be the actual conclusion (as ac- 
cording to my copy it is,) of the letter, loithout its postscript, 
which I did not intend to quote, or allude to. 

The whole letter, postscript and all, except the four sen- 
tences concerning pecuniary relations, it will be seen, referred 
to matters of private history, which had no connexion what- 
ever with the point specified, and matters, which, from 
motives of kindness to Mr. Wells and his family, as well 
as motives of respect to the memory of the deceased, I ^- 

particularly wished to avoid detailing and explaining to 
third persons. This is now made impossible by the act of 
Mr. Lowell. He has chosen to print the whole letter. I shall 
have occasion, therefore, by-and-by, to return to the sub- 
ject of my correspondence with Mr. Wells, which has now 
become, through Mr. Lowell's instrumentality, the property 
of the public ; and the reader will then find this letter re- 
printed by me with the explanations, which belong to it, and 
which, unless I am much mistaken, will give him an idea of 
its merits, very different from that, which may have been 
derived from Mr. Lowell. At present, I wish to confine 
myself to the discrepances between my quotation and the 
original, with a view of seeing what they amount to, as 
evidence to support Mr. Lowell's charge of a general habit 
of inaccuracy and defective memory. 

In the first place, I repeat, that the only fair subject of 
comparison is the part, which I intended to quote. In the 
next, I remark, that the variations, there, from the original, 
are, under the circumstances above stated, no great proof of 
general incorrectness. My copy, made at the time and in 
the manner above-mentioned, corresponds, precisely, with the 
original, as printed by Mr. Lowell, through upwards of a 
page and a half of that print, and down to the end of the 
sentence, beginning " There are some matters of business be- 
tween us," &c. : — which sentence my quotation began with. 
The remaining three sentences of the quotation are those 7iot 
copied at all, but which I ivrote down from memory, in De- 
cember, 1843, and quoted /oiir years afterivards, without ad- 



40 



verting to that circumstance, on the supposition that they 
were an exact copy. 

That the reader may see, precisely, what the departures 
from the original are, in these four sentences, and that they 
do not essentially vary the ideas, I now set them side by 
side, in Mr. Lowell's fashion ; and that the reader may, also, 
see with what fairness Mr. Lowell makes comparisons, I have 
added, as he does, in one of the columns, all of the letter 
that follows : — 



FROM MY COPY. 



FROM THE ORIGINAL, 
AS PRINTED BY MR. LOWELL. 



1. There are some matters of 
business between us, which, as we 
cannot conduct them in the pleas- 
ant manner we have done, I wish 
to have closed. 

2. The mortgage on your estate, 
I presume, you will find no diffi- 
culty in transferring ; as it is worth, 
much more than its cost. 

3. I should like to have it settled 
within ten days, or a fortnight, if 
convenient to you. 

4. The other money matters be- 
tween us are of no consequence. 

Very truly yours &c. 

Edward Brooks. 



1. There are some matters of 
business between us, which, as we 
cannot conduct them in the pleas- 
ant manner we have done, I wish 
to have closed. 

2. The mortgage I hold on your 
estate you can, no doubt, easily 
transfer to some one else, as the 
estate is worth a good deal more. 

3. Pray do so, and if possible, 
within a fortnight. 

4. Our other concerns are not 
important. 

5. You will some day see this 
business in its true light, though I 
have no hope that you will do so 
now. I suppose it is intended for 
some good purpose, that one, and 
he, let us hope, not in his right 
mind, should poison the peace of 
so many. 

Yours &c. 

Edward Brooks. 

P. S. You must see that while 
you, the eldest member of the fam- 
ily, countenance this man, by al- 
lowing him to go without remon- 
strance, it is virtually taking his 
part. 

Mr. Lowell remarks '^ that the words not only quoted, but 
emphasised, by Mr. Brooks — '-'- if convenient to yoiC^ — are not 
in the original letter, and would have materially modified the 



41 

peremptoriness of the requisition." [L. p. 124.] He does not 
pretend that the other variations materially affect the sense. 
Now I beg to ask, what there is so particularly peremptory in 
these words of supplication ? " Pray do so, and, if possible, 
within a fortnight^ Do they really mean, or would they con- 
vey to Mr. Wells, any thing more than the words, '' I should 
like to have it settled within ten days, or a fortnight, if con- 
venient to you ?" The}^ certainly did not to my own mind ; 
for the latter phraseology was, of course, intended, in a copy 
for my own use, to be identical with the former. That Mr. 
Wells did not think the words, actually used, so very peremp- 
tory, as Mr. LoAvell thinks they are, is evident from the 
manner, in which he spoke of my request, in his letters to 
Dr. Boott, for which I refer to the note on this subject in my 
former pamphlet. [B. p. 137.] I may refer, also, to the letter 
from Dr. Boott, which contains the extracts from these 
letters of Mr. Wells. It will be found printed in the course 
of my present remarks. But Mr. Lowell, of course, knows 
better than Mr. Wells. At any rate, it is clear enough, 
from the explanation now given, that the variations from 
the original, in the four sentences quoted, were purely acci- 
dental, and not made for the purpose of mending my case. 
Indeed Mr. Lowell does not intimate otherwise. But his 
farther remark is, that ^' it is all-important that his [Mr. 
Brooks's] accuracy should be tested, wherever he has afforded 
us an opportunity of doing so. A more correct opinion can 
thus be formed of the reliance to be placed on such of his remi- 
niscences, as cannot be subjected to the same ordeal." [L. p. 
125.] 

Now, considering that this letter had been written more 
than fourteen months before I began to make a copy of it ; 
that I had not even seen it in the interval ; and that, after 
copying to a certain point, the letter itself was given up, — the 
residue having been only hastily glanced over, — and that I 
undertook, a day or two after, to set down this part of it from 
mere recollection, my ability to recall its ideas so exactly, 
and its language so nearly, I think I may claim as proof of a 
tolerably good memory, instead of one so '' signally treacher- 

6 



42 

ous," [L. p. 95.] as Mr. Lowell would have his readers be- 
lieve. At any rate, I was not so much out of the way as 
Mr. Lowell is, in his ^' reminiscences" of the proceedings in 
the Probate Court, where he turns the whole idea topsy- 
turvy, by remembering a particular expression, and imagining 
it was used for an occasion, which never happened, but 
which he, nevertheless, thinks he remembers, with a number 
of circumstances altogether visionary. 

I admit that Mr. Lowell has, in this instance, caught me 
in a mistake, which may go for what it is worth. But as 
to his printing, as a part of the comparison, all that following 
part of the letter, which begins " You will some day see this 
business in its true light," &c., that is only another specimen 
of Mr. Lowell's fairness in argument. It, obviously, has 
nothing to do with the money concerns, which I was speak- 
ing of, nor with those parts of the letter respecting money 
matters, which were all I intended to quote ; but relates, ex- 
clusively, to the subjects treated of in a former part of the 
letter, which I intended 7iot to lay before the reader, for 
reasons that will soon be made obvious. This every body, 
who takes the pains to read the whole letter, will see. 

It would have been as impertinent for me to have quoted, 
in that connexion^ those subsequent sentences, which Mr. 
Lowell prints, as to have quoted the whole letter ,• and it is 
equally impertinent in Mr. Lowell to print them, as proof of 
my inaccuracy in quotation, or want of memory. My mis- 
take was, at most, a mistake ; in itself, of very little impor- 
tance, and purely accidental. Mr. Lowell's, unluckily, can- 
not be set down either as unimportant or as an accident. 
He makes an appeal to the eye, by his parallel columns, 
which operates as a fraud on the understanding. 



43 



CHAPTER V. 

THE LYMAN & RALSTON SETTLEMENT. 

Another error, which I admit, and which Mr. Lowell makes 
a great handle of, lies in my account of a settlement between 
Mr. J. Wright Boott and his partners, Messrs. Lyman & Ral- 
ston, to which their wives and some of their creditors were 
parties. 

The arrangements, growing out of the embarrassments of 
that partnership, were somewhat complicated in their details, 
and extended through a considerable period, in the years 1830 
and 1831. In fact, different arrangements were made, at 
different times, within those years, up to the final settlement. 
One of them resulted in the negotiation of a mortgage of the 
Mill Dam Foundry to friendly creditors in Philadelphia, for 
the sum of $30,000. By another, the reversionary interests 
of Mrs. Lyman and Mrs. Ralston, in their father's estate, 
were assigned to their brother, Mr. J. Wright Boott. The ob- 
ject and the effect of all the arrangements was to prevent a 
public failure, and to relieve Mr. Boott from pending endorse- 
ments for Lyman &> Ralston, to the amount of $30,000, and 
other existing, or apprehended, liabilities. 

Both Mr. Lowell and myself, as friends of all parties, were 
consulted in this business, and took an active part in effect- 
ing Mr. Boott's extrication. Some of the details fell more 
particularly under my superintendence ; in others, Mr. Lov/- 
ell was the more immediate and active agent. At the time 
of my writing respecting them, sixteen or seventeen years 
had elapsed, and I had nothing but my memory and a few 
letters from Mr. Kirk Boott, on the subject of his brother's 
embarrassments, to rely upon. It is not very surprising, 
therefore, that I should have fallen into some errors, concern- 
ing the details of so complex a matter, or should have viewed, 
as cotemporaneous, transactions, that were, in truth, separated 



44 

by a short interval. Neither is it very surprising that Mr. Lowell 
should be able to correct me, in these particulars, since he in- 
forms us, '' the settlement with Messrs. Lyman & Ralston was 
made hy myself [Lowell] in behalf of Mr. Wright Boott, and 
all the original papers are still in my possessions^ [L. p. 109.] 

It may be well, however, to see what the errors amount 
to, how much bearing they have on the main question, 
and how Mr. Lowell treats them. 

My account of the matter was as follows : — 

«* " It was found that $30,000 might be raised upon a mortgage of 
the foundry, as a friendly, rather than a business, arrangement. But 
Mr. Wright Boott, and we as his friends, insisted, that if he should 
execute a mortgage of the Mill Dam Foundry, to raise funds to take 
up the note of Lyman & Ralston, it would be unjust ; since it would 
leave the balance due by Mr. Wright Boott, as guardian, unprovided 
for ; and this we were very anxious should be paid in full. I refer 
to the letters of Mr. Kirk Boott, in the appendix, for an explanation 
of our views on this point. 

" It was finally arranged, that this mortgage should be made of the 
Mill Dam property, to raise the $30,000, and take up the note of 
Lyman & Ralston for that amount, on condition that Lyman & 
Ralston, and their wives, both of them sisters of Mr. Wright Boott, 
should assign to him all their reversionary interest in their father's 
estate. Their present property, so far as received, had already 
gone ; and whatever was due to them, being due to their husbands, 
was merged in the partnership business. This arrangement was 
accordingly effected, in September, 1831, Mr. J. A. Lowell being 
one of the persons, who called on those ladies, for the purpose of pro- 
curing their signatures to the necessary papers." [B. p. 41.] 

And I added — 

" A release, so obtained, from his endorsement of Lyman & Rals- 
ton's note for S30,000, was the only advantage ever realized by 
Mr. Wright Boott from the $70,000 invested by him in the Mill Dam 
speculation. The mortgagee, who was one of Mr. Ralston's family, 
afterwards took possession, and foreclosed the mortgage." [B. p. 41.] 

On this subject, Mr. Lowell, — who had remarked, shortly 
before, that "if Mr. Brooks had stated nothing, except so 
far as he was really informed, he would have omitted a 
large portion of his book," [L. p. 107.] — begins by remark- 
ing, that "the settlement effected with Messrs. Lyman & 
Ralston, in Sept. 1831, affords a good opportunity of testing 
the accuracy of Mr. Brooks's memory ;" [L. p. 107.] and, 
referring to parts of the statement above cited, he proceeds as 
follows ;— 



45 

" Not one of these statements has a shadow of truth. Mr. Wright 
Boott received by that settlement, besides the reversions of his two 
sisters, which will be worth at his mother's death S32,000, a payment 
in cash, or its equivalent, of S7,624, making in all nearly $40,000. 

" The mortgage in question was not created as part of that settle- 
ment ; on the other hand, it was expressly stipulated in the agree- 
ment, that it should be taken up, as a preliminary step to all further 
proceedings. It was accordingly discharged in October, 1831, and, 
of course, it was never foreclosed. 

" Subsequent events have made Mr. Brooks familiar with the fact, 
that Mr. Boott's sisters assigned to him their reversionary interests ; 
but he asserts [p. 41.] that this was a condition insisted on by Mr. 
Boott, before he would join in the mortgage of the Mill Dam Foun- 
dery; whereas that mortgage was made the year before, and the 
money went to the relief of those ladies' husbands." [L. p. 108.] 

I had also stated that the "business of the Mill Dam 
Foundry, so far as Mr. Wright Boott's concern in it ex- 
tended, was gradually wound up, leaving the residuum subject 
to the mortgage above mentioned, in which it was finally ab- 
sorbed;" [B. p. 46.] and had expressed, in a different part of 
my pamphlet, an opinion, as follows : " I presume, before the 
business was finally wound up, his loss there, including 
mterest, was not much short of $100,000." [B. p. 115.] 
Upon these passages Mr. Lowell comments in the following 
language : — 

"I do not doubt, that such is Mr. Brooks's judgement; and his 
presumption is undeniable. But he is evidently ignorant, that, by the 
settlement of 1831, Mr. Boott parted with his whole right, title, and 
interest in the Mill Dam Foundery, and had no more to do with its 
winding up, or the subsequent gain or loss, than Mr. Brooks or I had. 

" In short, Mr. Brooks has not stated one single condition of that 
settlement aright. 

" By this time, I think, it must be pretty evident that Mr. Brooks 
has undertaken to enlighten the public about transactions, of which 
he never knew any thing, or which he has completely forgotten." [L. 
p. 109.] 

Now the only point of the original argument, on which 
all this discussion about the terms of the settlement bears, 
is this : — to determine what amount of property, whether of 
his own, or of his father's estate, Mr. J. Wright Boott had 
invested and lost, for all present available purposes, in that 
concern. In August, 1830, he admitted his investment there 
to be $70,000, [B. p. 37.] which I understood to be the amount 
of the moneys actually paid in, without taking an account of 



46 

interest, on the one side, or of profits and losses, if any, on the 
other. The concern had been, at that time, about four years 
in operation, and it was continued, with Mr. J. Wright Boott a 
partner, more than a year longer, under the embarrassments 
of a heavy debt, '' doubtful credit," as Mr. Kirk Boott states, 
[B. App. p. 19.] and a bad business. I see no cause, there- 
fore, from any thing Mr. Lowell has disclosed, to alter my 
opinion, that, '' before the business was finally wound up," and 
'' so far as Mr. Wright Boott's concern in it extended," and 
for all presently available purposes, his immediate loss there, 
including interest, was not much short of $100,000. I say 
''immediate loss," and "presently available purposes," 
with reference to the main question, which I had under 
discussion, namely, whether Mr. Boott had kept good his 
trust funds. Reversionary rights in the fund itself were not 
means of keeping the fund whole, nor to be counted as 
property for that purpose, and they carried no income 
to offset against accruing interest. At any rate, what I 
stated, on that subject, (the amount of loss,) was stated as 
opinion merely. I am not answerable for it as a statement 
of fact ; and Mr. Lowell is at liberty to think my opinion 
presumption, or not, as he pleases. 

What then is the substantial difference of fact, in our 
respective statements, as to the terms of the settlement, so 
far as they affected Mr. Boott's pecuniary position in respect 
to the trust fund ? It consists in a sum of $7,624, and no 
more, which Mr. Lowell says was paid to Mr. Boott in cash, 
or its equivalent, as part of that settlement. He furnishes 
no proof of it, beyond his own statement, although he says 
he has all the papers in his possession. But I take it, for 
my present purpose, to be so, and aver, that this is the only 
material fact, in the terms of the settlement, as disclosed by 
him, which I either " never knew " or had " completely 
forgotten," and therefore omitted to state. It is the only 
new fact, or variation from my statement, which affects the 
argument in the smallest degree ; and I shall by-and-by 
restate the accounts with that correction. The reversions 
of the sisters, subject to their mother's life estate, what- 



47 

ever they may have been worth at the time of the settle- 
ment, I had myself stated were assigned to Mr. Boott as 
part of the final arrangement, though Mr. Lowell, instead 
of giving me credit for it, would cause it to be understood, 
by his account of the matter, that I had omitted that also. 

All the other matters of detail, which Mr. Lowell says are 
erroneously stated by me, are of no consequence, if they are 
erroneously stated, except for the purpose of ^' testing the 
accuracy of Mr. Brooks's memory." Now I very readily 
admit, that, on looking back, through a vista of nearly seven- 
teen years, upon transactions, in which I was only an adviser 
and agent for others, Avith no direct personal interest, and with 
no opportunity to refresh my memory, as Mr. Lowell does 
his, by examining original papers, — although I did remember 
'^ pretty well " the fact of the settlement, and its substan- 
tial result, and remembered, perfectly well, all that was 
essential to the main question under discussion, — my re- 
collections of some immaterial details, for which I did not 
undertake to tax my memory very severely, were so far indis- 
tinct, that an arrangement, which terminated in the making of 
a certain mortgage, became blended, in my own mind, with 
the subsequent and final settlement, a few months later. I 
was wrong, therefore, in stating that '-It was Jinalli/ ar- 
ranged that this mortgage should be made of the Mill Dam 
property, to raise the $30,000, and to take up the note of 
Lyman & Ralston for that amount, on condition that Lyman 
& Ralston and their wives, both of them sisters of Mr. 
Wright Boott, should assign to him all their reversionary 
interest in their father's estate." But, though wrong in 
making the mortgage and the assignment cotemporaneouSj 
I was not wrong in the main fact, that this assignment of 
the reversionary interests was one condition and principal 
element of the settlemeiit^ as finally arranged. And if Mr. 
Lowell is right in his recollections, I was not very 7niich out, 
in connecting this assignment of reversionary interests with 
the negotiation about the mortgage; since he states, in 
another place, that when Mr. Boott ^r6'^ called on Lyman & 
Ralston to give him security for his endorsements^ ^' they 



48 

replied, that he had ah'eady security in his own hands in 
the reversionary shares of their wives in the trust funds, 
which they were ready legally to assign to him for this pur- 
pose. This would not answer, and a long negotiation ensued, 
which ended in Mr. Boott's joiiiing in a mortgage of the 
Foundery property to the amount of $30,000, for their ben- 
efit." [L. p. 77.] So that my unassisted memory, if some- 
what inexact, was not '^ signally treacherous," even there ; 
since such an assignment, it seems, was part of the same 
7iegotiation, which ended in Mr. Boott's joining in the mort- 
gage, though the actual execution of that assignment did 
not in fact occur till the final settlement of their accounts, 
several months afterwards. As to the suggestion, '' that 
subsequent events," only, ^' have made Mr. Brooks familiar 
with the fact that Mr. Boott's sisters assigned to him their 
reversionary interests," I refer Mr. Lowell to the deed of 
assignment ; by which he will see, that I was a witness to 
the signature of all the parties, and took their acknowledge- 
ment, [B. app. p. 22.] he himself being a witness only to that 
of Mrs. Lyman. Mr. Lowell, however, now claims, charac- 
teristically enough, the whole merit of having negotiated that 
settlement ; and, for myself, — ^being rather ashamed of that 
feature in it, by which the property of the wives was taken 
to pay the debts of their husbands, — I am quite content that 
he should have it. 

I was also wrong in stating, that '' the mortgagee, who 
was one of the Ralston family, afterwards took posses- 
sion and foreclosed the mortgaged But Mr. Lowell is 
hardly right, when he denies this, in stating, as he does, 
that the terms of the negotiation, as finally settled through 
him, were, that ^' the whole property in the Mill Dam 
Foundery was to be sold to sl joint stock company, ^^ [L. p. 79.] 
without stating who that company were, and what became 
of the property ; because the denial and the assertion, taken 
together, without further explanation, convey a false impres- 
sion. The truth is, that I was wrong as to the form, in 
which the thing was done, but right as to its substantial 
effect. It is true, as ]\Ir. Lowell states, that the mortgage, 



49 

made late in 1830, was discharged at the time of the final 
settlement in 1831, instead of being held and foreclosed ; 
and it is true that the property was sold to a joint stock 
company. But that, which he has omitted to state, is, that this 
joint stock company consisted, entirely, of the Messrs. Ralston 
themselves and Mr. Lyman, — the latter having little more 
than a nominal interest, in consequence of his indebtedness 
to his partner, Mr. Ralston ; — that stock in the company 
was issued, or assigned, in lieu of the discharged mortgage, as 
a substituted security ; — that the concern struggled along, in 
this new form, several years longer, with some other nominal 
stockholders, brought in as agents to conduct the business, or 
to keep up the corporate organization ; — that the business 
never ' prospered, and was finally wound up with a great 
loss to Mr. Ralston ; (that fact, indeed, Mr. Lowell does 
state in another connexion, page 202 ;) — and that the whole 
property passed, in consideration of their advances, into 
the hands of the Ralston family, by whom it was long 
held in this market for sale, and was recently sold for 
thirty thousand dollars, — exactly the amount of the original 
mortgage, without interest. 

This I hold to be pretty much the same thing, in effect, 
as an entry and foreclosure under the Ralston mortgage. 
For, the fact, of the supposed foreclosure, was stated, only to 
show how little the property turned out to be intrinsically 
worth ; and that Mr. J. Wright Boott never got any thing out 
of it, except what he got by the settlement, — which Mr. 
Lowell admits. The property passed entirely out of his 
hands ; and that was all that was material to my statement. 

Most of the facts, now above stated, are very notorious ; 
and, for the rest, I refer to the records of the corporation, and 
to the following note from its present clerk and treasurer : — • 

NOTE FROM Mr. SAMUEL NICOLSON. 

Dear Sir, — The property of the corporation, called " the Propri- 
etors of the Mill Dam Foundery," of which I am the present Clerk 
and Treasurer, was lately sold by the Messrs. Ralston, of Philadel- 
phia, for thirty thousand dollars. 

The conveyance was made by a transfer of shares in the corporate 



50 

stock, in all one hundred and forty shares, of which one hundred 
and thirty-six came from the Messrs. Kalston and the executors of 
the late Mr. Ralston, and the remaining four shares from Messrs. 
Curtis & Leavens, who were the officers of the corporation, and held 
them in that capacity. 

Very respectfully, 

Your obedient servant, 

Samuel jSTicolson. 
May 12, 1848. 

This, I believe, is the sum of my errors on this head ; 
and it is only another specimen of Mr. Lowell's fairness 
of statement, to charge me with saying, '■'■ over and over 
again, that Mr. Boott's investment there was sunk," and 
that " a release from his endorsements of $30,000, was the 
only advantage ever realized by Mr. Wright Boott from the 
$70,000 invested by him in the Mill Dam speculation," — 
[L. p. 108.] without showing the connexion, in which these 
expressions were used. 

I had just stated the fact of the assignment of the re- 
versionary interests, as part of the final arrangement, when 
I said, in that immediate connexion, that '' a release 
so obtained from his endorsement of Lyman & Ralston's 
note for $30,000, was the only advantage ever realized," 
&c. These material words, " so obtained," — that is, ob- 
tained by a settlement, just above described, in which 
description the assignment of the reversions was distinctly 
included, — are wholly omitted by Mr. Lowell, in his quota- 
tion of my language, and nothing is put in to supply the 
effect of their omission. Instead of informing the reader, 
that the words, he quotes, were expressly qualified by a refer- 
ence to that fact, he informs him of exactly the reverse, by 
quoting the words without the qualification, declaring that 
there is not '' a shadow of truth " in these words, [L. p. 108.] 
and immediately adding, that Mr. Boott received these rever- 
sions by the settlement, as if I had said nothing about them. 
And although it is true, that, after having once described the 
settlement with that material feature, and after having qual- 
ified my first statement of Mr. Boott's loss by express refer- 
ence to it, I did not always repeat the qualification, when, in 



51 

other parts of the pamphlet, I spoke, in general terms, of the 
loss as total, yet, the whole discussion of the question, whether 
his investment was su7ik or not, was in reference to the 
existing integrity of the trust fund, and not in reference to 
the amount of Mr. Boott's reversionary interest in it, which 
would add nothing to the fund, was totally immaterial to 
the main question, and from which he never, in fact, 
realized any thing to the day of his death. 

Yet, Mr. Lowell refers to these general expressions of 
mine, — divested of that context, — declares them to be false, 
and states, in proof of their falsehood, — as if it were a new 
fact coming from him, — not only the payment of the $7624, 
(which I admit was overlooked by me, if I ever knew it,) 
but also the very same fact, concerning the reversions, which 
I had myself stated, without giving me credit for it in any 
form. Is that fair argument ? It is, at least, one specimen 
of Mr. Lowell's book. 

To return then to the relative degree of reliance to be 
placed on our respective statements, when dependant on 
mere memory, — the instances, thus shown up, of my for- 
getfulness of certain immaterial details in this settlement, are 
not found to be opposed by any superior accuracy of recollec- 
tion in Mr. Lowell, writing, as he does, with the original 
papers before him. With such aids to memory as these, who 
can doubt, that I should now recall much that has escaped 
me ? I am inclined to believe, that I should recollect some 
things, which Mr. Lowell, with the light of the papers before 
him, has not thought proper to tell. At any rate, I think I 
perceive one erroneous statement of his, concerning this 
settlement, infinitely more important, to the principal in- 
quiry, than all mine put together. This I shall again advert 
to in its proper place. 



52 



CHAPTER VI. 

MY SUPPOSED MISTAKE ABOUT COMPOUND INTEREST. A SERIES 
OF STRANGE MISTAKES BY MR. LOWELL. 

Another case, relied upon to impeach my accuracy, and 
made to appear somewhat striking, lies in the following 
statement, illustrating certain peculiarities of Mr. J. Wright 
Boott's business character, his fitness for a trustee, and his 
management as executor. It relates to the settlement of 
certain of his accounts, as guardian to persons out of the 
immediate family. 

" Mr. Lowell and myself assisted him in the adjustment of those 
accounts. How much lie required such assistance, and the peculiarity 
of his ideas in such matters, are illustrated bj the fact, that he, for a 
long time, insisted upon making them up with interest compound- 
ed, at frequent intervals, although he charged nothing for his services. 
The compound interest would have made a difference of about 
$10,000 in the amount to be paid. And he could hardly be persuaded 
not to account on that false principle, although it was apparent that 
the money, he would so appropriate, heloyiged to his father'' s estate, and 
not to him. Left to himself, he would have taken the property of 
his brothers and sisters, for the purpose of giving it to his wards, un- 
der the idea that it was no more than duty required. We succeeded, 
however, in rectifying his accounts, in that and some other particulars, 
and nothing being charged for the services of nearly twenty years, the 
heirs of Mr. Francis Boott, who knew nothing of the hazard, to which 
their property had been put, were extremely well satisfied with the 
settlement." [B. p. 49.] 

Mr. Lowell's comment is in the following language : — 

" To show what Mr. Brooks's reminiscences are worth after such a 
lapse of time, I will adduce a single instance. He says (p. 49,) that 
in February, 1835, Mr. Boott settled his accounts as guardian ; that 
he for a long time insisted upon making up the accounts with interest 
compounded at frequent intervals, and that the compound interest so 
to have been allowed ' would have made a difference of $10,000 in the 
amount to be paid.' 

" Now I happen to have, among the papers received in my capacity 
as executor to Mr. Boott, an original letter, which I wrote to him on 
this very subject. It is as follows : 



53 

''Boston, October 21, 1834. 
"John W. Boott, Esq. 
"My Dear Sik, 

" The mode of computing interest, which you have adopted, is one 
very unreasonably favorable to the minors. If you do not think 
proper to charge any commission for your services of nearly twenty 
years, which, considering the present relative situation of the parties, 
so different from what it was at the opening of the account, and differ- 
ent owing to your good judgment and exertions in their behalf, is an 
excess of liberality on your part, — if, notwithstanding all these con- 
siderations, you persist in not charging them any thing for your ser- 
vices, you surely have done enough, without allowing them an exor- 
bitant rate of interest for the sums, which have lain in your hands. 
I roughly went over one of the accounts, the other day, on the prin- 
ciple of allowing no interest on income until it became funded by 
being added to the principal on the following first of January, and 
found that this would make a difference of about $800, or, on the 
three accounts, of $2500. 

" I should like to see you upon this subject whenever you are at 
leisure. 

Yours truly, 

J. A. LOWELL." 

" Here then it appears that the difference in the modes of computing 
interest would have been S2500, instead of $10,000, to which it has 
grown when refracted through the prism of Mr. Brooks's memory ! If 
all his statements of sums are to be divided by four, it will make a 
material difference in the result. Yet nearly the whole of this book, 
so far as money matters are concerned, rests on Mr. Brooks's memory." 
fL. p. 81.] 

My first remark upon this is, that Mr. Lowell seizes upon 
the most insignificant part of the whole statement, namely, 
the amount of the difference between simple and compound 
interest, as if it were the essence of the thing. With refer- 
ence to the purpose, for which the statement was made, in 
illustration of Mr. Boott's peculiarities, it is of no manner of 
importance whether the sum were $10,000, or more, or less, 
provided it were a sum worthy of consideration. If it were 
$5000, or even $2500, as Mr. Lowell would have it, it would 
have answered the purpose of the illustration equally well ; 
and, in that case, I should only have to regret the appearance, 
on my part, of that spirit of exaggeration, for the sake of 
striking statements, which characterizes Mr. Lowell's '^ Reply," 
and which, I trust, I am not generally chargeable with. I 
certainly did not intend so to write, and am not conscious of 
it, in a single instance. 



54 

Fairly viewed, Mr. Lowell's cotemporaneous letter, even if 
I was wrong as to the smu, instead of being a successful im- 
peachment of the general accuracy of my memory, applied to 
an old transaction, (which is the point, for which it is cited,) 
is, in fact, a striking confirmation of it, in all that was essen- 
tial. It proves, just as I had stated, that, when Mr. Boott 
made up his guardianship accounts, they required to be 
reformed in the matter of interest ; — that he had adopted the 
false principle of allowing compound interest, from '^ an 
excess of liberality," while he charged nothing for his ser- 
vices of nearly twenty years ; — that Mr. Lowell was consulted 
about it, and, of course, I was, or I should not have known the 
facts ; — and that we objected to his mode of stating the inter- 
est, as ^' unreasonably favourable to the minors." The accounts, 
as finally settled, show that we succeeded, at last, in induc- 
ing him to charge simple interest only. These are the mate- 
rial facts, stated by me from mere memory, and now proved hy 
Mr. LowelVs letter, connected with the accounts. 

My next remark is, that the only proof given, that my 
estimate of the sum was erroneous, is this same letter from 
Mr. Lowell ; in which he stated to Mr. Boott, that, by going 
over one of the accounts '' roughly," on a certain principle of 
computing interest, which he describes, he found it would 
make a difference, in Mr. Boott 's favour, on that account, " of 
about $800, or on the three accounts of $2500." On the 
other hand, / stated the effect of compounding, on all the 
accounts, at a round sum, of '' about $10,000." This, then, 
is only another case of Lowell versus Brooks. But that is 
quite enough for Mr. Lowell, who appears to enjoy an envia- 
ble consciousness of being always in the right, — especially 
in a matter of accounts, — of which he considers me wholly 
incompetent to judge. 

Mr. Lowell must excuse me, considering my feebleness in 
that particular, if I am unable to feel the full confidence, that 
he feels, even in his statements on such subjects. I prefer to 
look for myself, with such poor ability as I have. And this 
leads me to my third remark, namely, that, if Mr. Lowell 
meant to say in that letter, as he now thinks he did, that 



55 

the difference between simple and compound interest, on all 
the accounts then in question, was only $2500, instead of 
$10,000, he was, incredible as he may think it, very much 
out of his reckoning. 

I have obtained from the Probate Office a copy of one of 
these accounts, (the same which Mr. Lowell selects [L. p. 98.] 
as an example of Mr. Boott's successful administration of a trust 
fund,) and, on examining it, I find that the difference between 
simple and compoimd interest, on the items it contains, is sever- 
al thousand dollars, instead of about eight hundred dollars, as 
Mr. Lowell supposes it to have been. I do not know that this 
is the identical account, which Mr. Lowell "roughly" went 
over, in 1834 ; but his letter shows, that the several accounts, 
then in his possession, were so nearly alike, that he assumes the 
difference he speaks of to be about the same in each. And if 
so, I say, the difference m eac/i, of compounding or not com- 
pomiding interest, with annual rests, amounts to several 
tliousand dollars, instead of several hundred dollars, as Mr. 
Lowell says. 

To set this matter at rest, since Mr. Lowell thinks my 
statements cannot be relied on, I placed the account, for 
examination, in the hands of a gentleman, whose professional 
skill in such matters will hardly be disputed. I now refer 
to the result, as stated by him ; and that will save the ne- 
cessity of printing the account, and the computations. 

LETTER FROM Mr. JOHN S. TYLER. 

Boston, August 31, 1848. 
Edward Brooks, Esq. 

Sir : — I have carefully examined the copy you sent me, from the 
records of the Probate Office, of the account of " John W. Boott, 
surviving guardian of Francis Boott," dated January 1st, 1835, and 
passed January 12, 1835. 

It begins with a debit of $12,500, received in cash, September 30th, 
1816, from the administrator on the estate of Mr. Francis Boott, the 
father of the ward, and embraces transactions extending through the 
entire period from that date to the date of the account, — i. e. a 
period of about eighteen years and three months. 

The credit side consists (after a small allowance for probate fees) of 
yearly disbursements for the expenses of the ward, entered, uniformly, 
under the date of September 30, in each year, and of a sum of 
S8819 59, paid over in cash, "to order of said ward," at the settle- 



56 

ment of the account, and of sundry enumerated stocks, credited, " at 
cost," as transferred at the same time, amounting, in the aggregate, to 
S18,760 16. 

The debit side, after the entry of the above mentioned sum of 
$12,500, September 30, 1816, is composed of the several items of 
interest and dividends received, from time to time, on the investments, 
and of a profit on certain stocks sold, and of one item for a premium 
on the sale of a right of subscription, and of the following concluding 
item : — 

" 1835, January 1. With interest on sundry moneys in his hands, 
per interest account settled with his ward since her coming of age, 
$7012 88." 

The whole capital, originally received, appears to have been invest- 
ed, soon after, in United States 6 per cent, stocks — and these stocks 
appear to have been re-sold, in 1818 and 1821 — producing, in the 
latter year, upwards of $11,000 in cash, which does not appear to 
have been greatly reduced by new investments, or other expenditures 
of money, until the two or three last years embraced in the account. 
The annual receipts from income usually exceeded the annual pay- 
ments for expenses of the M^ard, and for investments made ; so that 
considerable cash balances appear to have been in the guardian's 
hands from year to year, and a large balance, in the whole, for quite 
a long period. These uninvested sums are the foundation of the debit 
above mentioned of $7012 88, for interest of moneys. 

The inquiries you put to me are, — 

" 1st. Was this sum intended to represent simple interest at six 
per cent., or compound interest ?" 

*' 2d. If the former, what is the difference in amount between that 
and the interest compounded annually ?" 

Since the $7012 88 appears to have been the balance of an "in- 
terest account settled with his ward," w^hich is not annexed, nor the 
date of the settlement given, I have not the means of determining 
either the exact date up to which interest was, in fact, computed, or 
the precise steps, by which this sum was arrived at. The method I 
have adopted, therefore, to answer your questions, is to reconstruct the 
interest account from the data which the probate account furnishes, 
up to the dates mentioned below. 

[Here follow remarks, which would not be very intelligible to the reader with- 
out the account, and which I therefore omit.] 

The only facts, not deduced directly from the account itself, which 
I assume for the purposes of the computation, are, — 

1. That the time of settlement with the ward, at which interest 
ceased to run, did not exceed one year before the date of the probate 
account, presuming that the guardian would not omit to charge him- 
self with interest for a longer period than that. 

2. That the rate of interest, whether simple or compounded, is six 
per cent, per annum. 

3. That the original capital of $12,500 was invested so soon after 
its receipt, that no interest need be charged upon that, but only upon 
the receipts and payments of subsequent years. 



57 

4. That no interest runs, except from the end of each year, and 
upon the balance accruing from the cash transactions of the year add- 
ed to the principal sum on hand at its commencement. 

5. That the years begin and end on the 30th of September. 

G I have also assumed, on your information, that the two shares 
of stock in the Boston Manufacturing Company, bought in 1820. 
were bought at the original subscription price for the new stock then 
issued, viz. ^1150 a share. 

[Hei'e follow further remarks, which I omit, for the reason above stated.] 

The proof that all the assumptions I speak of, taken together, do 
not vary essentially from the facts, is this. The final balance of sim- 
ple interest brought out by the computation, at the end of eighteen 
years, differs from the balance of interest stated in the probate ac- 
count, by only !tpl30 11, though the whole amount of interest is up- 
wards of ^7,000. 

With these explanations, I answer yonr questions as follows : — 

1. The sum of S7,012 88, in the probate account, must have been 
intended to represent simple interest only. That is to say, the result 
of my own computations, on the assumptions above mentioned, ap- 
proaches that sum so nearly at simple interest, and differs from it so 
widely at compound interest, as to indicate that it was probably in- 
tended for the balance of simple interest, at six per cent, per annum, on 
all moneys paid and received by the guardian, up to the date of the ac- 
count, or to some date not far from it, and to make it certain that it 
does not represent compound interest up to that date, nor any date 
within several years of it. 

2. Interest at six per cent, per annum, computed from the same 
data and compounded annually, would have amounted, at the last 
complete year within the period of the account, viz. September 30, 
1834, to $10,879 38. Consequently, the difference between compound 
interest and the sum charged for interest in the account, viz. $7,012 88, 
is found, at that date, to be $3,866 50. 

This goes upon the presumption, that the guardian may have pre- 
pared himself to pay over the balance at the end of the year, although 
the probate account was not, in fact, settled until several months after ; 
and, therefore, that he is not to be charged with interest after Septem- 
ber 30, 1834. 

But, if the compound interest should be computed up to the date, at 
which the entry of interest is made in the probate account, viz. Jan- 
uary 1, 1835, the amount of the difference between compound interest 
at that date, and the sum charged for interest in the account, w^ould 
be S4,057 33. 

This, strictly, answers your questions. But I have already stated 
that simple interest at six per cent, per annum., computed from the 
data of the account and on the assumptions stated, differs, by one 
hundred and thirty dollars eleven cents, from the sum charged for in- 
terest in the probate account. This may arise, either from srme error 
of computation, or from the dates, within the years, from which Mr. 
Boott considered interest to run, or from some other elementary differ- 
ence, which cannot be positively ascertained, without seeing the inter- 



58 

est account stated by him, or knowing the steps, by which he arrived 
at the sum of $7,012 88. 

But any difference, except that arising from gross errors, must be 
within certain limits ; and in reference to those limits I would further 
state, that the true difference between simple and compound interest, 
computed from the data of the account, at the rate of six per cent, 
per annum., amounts, at the date of the account, if my computations 
are correct, to $3,927 22. Computed to September 30, 1834, it 
amounts to $3,736 39. 

If the date of the settlement of interest with the ward were some- 
what earlier than this, the amount of the difference would be somewhat 
less. But, the uninvested cash balance constantly on hand, after 1821, 
with no very great diminution till 1832 — 3, as shown by the probate 
account, was so large, and for such a length of time, that the differ- 
ence between simple interest and interest compounded annually, upon 
that balance, up to any date, within the last year of the account, 
which may be assumed as the actual date of the settlement of the in- 
terest account with the ward, cannot have amounted to a sum very 
much less than is above stated. 

Variations in the days of the year, from which interest may have 
begun to run on the payments and receipts of each year, and all the 
other elementary differences, which the probate account leaves a lati- 
tude for, between my assumptions and the data, upon which the sum 
of $7,012 88 may have been arrived at, (gross errors only excepted) 
cannot reduce the amount of difference between simple and com- 
pound interest, to a sum less than somewhere between $3,000 and 
$4,000. 

I enclose my computations, which have been made with great care, 
and I believe without errors. 

And am, Sir, your humble servant, 

JOHN S. TYLER. 

The difference, then, between the simple and the com- 
pound interest, on this single account, is, at least, $3,736 39 • 
and Mr. Lowell has the misfortune to say it is only $800 ! 

He speaks, in his letter, of three such accounts, which I 
suppose were then in his hands. But there were, in truth, 
four of them in all, not very unlike each other on the point 
in question. It will be seen, therefore, that instead of mak- 
iig an egregious blunder, or even exaggerating the fact, 
when I said '' the compound interest would have made a 
difference of about Xqh thousand dollars in the amount to be 
paid," I kept myself far within the limits of the truth f and 

* By a letter from Mr. Tyler of later date, which the reader will come to in 
its place, he will find the difference, on all the accounts, was more than $12,000, 



59 

since I spoke from mere memory, without a scrap of paper to 
look at, I am quite content that this instance should be taken, 
^' to show what Mr. Brooks's reminiscences are worth after 
such a lapse of time," — Mr. Lowell's letter to the contrary 
notwithstanding. 

But I will not do Mr. Lowell the injustice to leave my 
readers under the impression, that, when he was deliberately 
examining Mr. Boott's accounts, in 1834, with a view to 
advise him how to compute interest, he really made so 
gross a miscalculation as to set down at eight hundred 
dollars, a difference, which was, in truth, little, if at all, 
short of four thousand dollars. The mistake is not in his 
letter, but in his book. Strange as it may seem, he does 
not ufiderstand his own letter ; and, even with the letter 
before him, has neither '^ reminiscence," nor perception, of 
the point he was then advising upon. 

This letter did not intend to state the difference between 
simple and compound interest. It states the difference be- 
tween two different modes of compounding ; namely, 1. 
putting each item of cash received on interest, from the day 
it was received to the end of that year, and then adding the 
item, with this increment of interest, to the principal sum 
on hand at the beginning of the year, and making the aggre- 
gate a new capital, to draw interest for the next year ; — 2. 
computing no interest on such items of receipt within the 
year, in which they are received, but adding the simple items 
themselves, without any increment for interest, to the prin- 
cipal, at the end of the year, and taking that sum for the 
new capital. 

Both are methods of compounding, but one causes accu- 
mulation considerably faster than the other ; and the differ- 
ence, on this account, is very likely to have been about eight 
hundred dollars, as Mr. Lowell's letter stated it to be. This 
cannot now be ascertained, from the account itself, as recorded 
in the Probate Office, since the dates of days are not given 
in it, though the receipts of each year are distinguished. 
But careful attention to the language of the letter will show, 
very plainly, that the difference above stated is that, to 



60 

which Mr. Lowell referred when he said, '' I roughly went 
over the accounts, the other day, on the principle of allow- 
ing 110 interest on income until it became funded^ by being 
added to the principal on the following first of January, and 
found this would make a difference of about $800." 

The truth is, that Mr. Boott, at first, made up his ac- 
counts on the ultra principles of not allowing moneys to 
rest in his hands a day without drawing interest, and of 
compoundiiig the interest annually. In that form they 
went to Mr. Lowell, and the first correction suggested was 
that, which his letter explains, namely, striking out all interest, 
between the annual rests, on sums received in the intervals. 
Bat that was not the end of it. If it were, the account 
would now stand with interest, compounded from year to 
year, according to that principle ; whereas, the sums 
charged for interest are simple interest alone. It was a 
long time before the accounts were brought into the shape, 
in which they were finally settled. Dates show that. Mr. 
Lowell's letter was written in October, 1834 ; the accounts 
are made up to January 1, 1835, with interest to that 
day. In the mean time, I was brought in to the consult- 
ation, and set my face against the principle of allowing 
compound interest at all, Vv^hen no commission was charged 
for services, and when it was apparent that the money must 
come, not out of Mr. Boott's own pocket, but out of other 
trust funds in his hands. Mr. Lowell concurred with me ; 
and we, finally, though not without great difficulty, brought 
Mr. Boott over to the adoption of our views. 

After the lapse of more than a dozen years, Mr. Lowell, 
though his memory may not be '' signally treacherous," had 
totally forgotten these particulars. But he finds, among Mr. 
Boott's papers, fortunately, as he thinks, an old letter, from 
himself, on the subject of these guardianship accounts. The 
letter objects to Mr. Boott's mode of computing interest as 
'' very unreasonably favourable to the minors." It urges, that 
the omission of all charge, for services of nearly twenty years, 
is liberality enough, without allowing '' an exorbitant rate 
of interest" besides, It goes on to show that another mode 



61 

of computing interest would make a difference, on each ac- 
count, of about eight hundred dollars in Mr. Boott's favour. 
Misled by these general resemblances to the case stated by me, 
resemblance in everything, apparently, except the sum spoken 
of, Mr. Lowell jumped, as he sometimes does, to a conclusion, 
and took it for granted that he and I were speaking of the same 
thing throughout, that his difference was my difference, 
and that my memory had multiplied the figures by four. In 
his eao;erness to destroy my credibility in such matters, by 
convicting me of mistakes at every turn, he recklessly charg- 
es this as one, without taking the pains to examine, carefully, 
the account, which was before him, or to go over it ever so 
'• roughly," for the purpose of seeing what the compound in- 
terest would amount to, or even to consider the language of 
his own letter with sufficient attention to understand its 
true meaning. 

Yet what a confidence is there in his present statement ! 
'^ Here, then," says he, — after quoting his own letter as the 
highest authority, — '' Here, then, it appears, that the differ- 
ence in the modes of computing interest would have been 
$2500, instead of fi 0,000, to which it has grown when 
refracted through the prism of Mr. Brooks's memory !" 
How complacently are we made aware, that, '^ if all his 
[Brooks's] sums are to be divided by four, it will make a ma- 
terial difference in the result" ! And with what a boldness 
of hyperbole does he amplify the effect of my supposed mis- 
take, by adding, " yet nearly the whole book, so far as money 
m^atters are concerned, rests on Mr. Brooks^ s memory^'' ! And, 
after all, there are no mistakes, miscalculations, nor mis-recol- 
lections in the matter, but his own ! 

The reader will find the same confidence, complacency, 
and hyperbole abundantly sprinkled over Mr. Lowell's pages. 
He must every where look out for them, and make due allow- 
ances ; though, perhaps, after this single exposition, (others 
quite as remarkable, and far less excusable, will follow,) he 
may think it would have been as well for Mr. Lovv^ell to have 
said less about my " usual accuracy," and the value of my 
'' reminiscences." 



62 



CHAPTER VII. 

MR. Lowell's mode of treating witnesses, mr. william 

BOOTT. MRS. MARY LYMAN. BOTH UNJUSTLY ATTACKED. 

I have now answered the three principal counts of the in- 
dictment against me for gross inaccuracy and feebleness of 
memory. Many other errors are charged, with equal bold- 
ness, in support of it ; but I have picked out the most prom- 
inent, and have given a fair sample, in the varieties above 
selected, of what they all come to. For the rest, when they 
are important enough to be noticed, I shall notice them in 
connexion with the topics, to which they relate. 

The same sort of impeachment of credibility, on various 
grounds, is extended by Mr. Lowell to almost every person 
referred to by me as authority for particular statements. Some 
are treated as accomplices in my crime of self-vindication ; — 
and, for one reason or another, scarcely one of them, accord- 
ing to him, is to be believed. Now it is no part of my busi- 
ness to defend other persons against Mr. Lowell's attack, 
except so far as I may have been the means of subjecting them 
to it, or so far as their testimony may be material for my use. 
But, in respect to both Mr. William Boott and Mrs. Mary 
Lyman, I have, on one or other of these grounds, a word or 
two to say. 

Mr. Lowell affects to consider Mi. William Boott as much a 
party to my former pamphlet, '' as if his name had been embla- 
zoned [meaning, probably, printed] with that of Mr. Edward 
Brooks, on its title page." [L. Preface.] This is his excuse, 
(he says it " requires no apology, ^^ although he evidently feels 
that it does,) for publishing portions of that gentleman's most 
private and confidential communications with a brother in 
London, and letters, or parts of letters, to other persons, for the 



63 

purpose, — not openly avowed, but scarcely concealed, — of im- 
peaching his veracity, and of otherwise harming his reputa- 
tion, in matters very remotely connected with the subjects 
in controversy. 

How far he has succeeded, by these means, in contradict- 
ing any thing, which that gentleman has said, and how far 
he has dealt fairly with the statements he pretends to oppose 
to each other, we shall see when we come to that part of 
the case. 

But I feel bomid, in justice, to contradict, at the outset, 
the assumption, on which Mr. Lowell proceeds, that Mr. 
William Boott is responsible for any thing contained in my for- 
mer pamphlet, except what is expressly stated there as standing 
on his authority. The " Reply" treats him as responsible for 
the whole — the discussion on the subject of accounts, as well 
as the discussion on the subject of insanity. For example, 
speaking of the accounts, Mr. Lowell says, in his usual lan- 
guage of exaggeration, (L. p. 37,) — "After passing months in 
their analysis, aided by Mr. William Boott, and by two of 
the ablest lawyers in Boston, he [Brooks] entertains no 
doubt," &c. Now so far was Mr. William Boott from aiding 
me, in preparing my statement on the subject of Mr. J. Wright 
Boott's accounts, or my statement of any thing connected with 
his management of the family funds, that he did what he 
could to dissuade me from touching those topics. He wished 
me to confine my statement, so far as it raised any issue con- 
cerning Mr. J. Wright Boott, strictly, to the evidence of his 
insanity. 

I gave to this subject much consideration ; and regretted, 
deeply, that I could not see my way to any possibility of 
avoiding the question of mismanagement. It was, in my 
judgement, and that of judicious friends, the very tm^ning 
point of the whole issue between Mr. Lowell and myself — 
the corner stone, which lay at the foundation of the ques- 
tion, whether the charge against me, of having caused a death 
by false accusations and willful persecution, was well or ill 
founded. All that I have since learned has tended to confirm 
that opinion. 



64 

If Mr. J. Wright Boott had, indeed, not mismanaged the fam- 
ily property ; if the account, which Mr. Lowell had prepared for 
him, did, indeed, exhibit the true results of his management, 
and omitted nothing, which justly belonged to it, and was 
settled, with my assent, as being just what it ought to be ; all 
that part of J\ir. Lowell's testimony, which occasioned injury 
to me, might have been, very nearly, as Mr. Lowell said it 
was, — testimony, of which I had not " any right to complain." 
It would have been impossible for me, as Mr. Lowell now de- 
clares it is, to justify my conduct, on that hypothesis, miless 
by admitting, contrary to the truth, that I had acted, through- 
out, under a mere mistake, which, if it might be a faint 
excuse, was no justification. 

The question of Mr. J. Wright Boott 's insanity was one, 
which I knew, from its nature, must be difficult of proof, and 
liable, on that account, to remain doubtful in some minds ; 
that of his accounts, so far as was necessary to show his mifit- 
ness for a trustee, and the propriety of my doing what I did, 
I knew could be made as clear as the light of the sun, to all, 
who would attend to them. And although it was a necessity 
most painful to me, which led into that range of inquiry, 
I satisfied myself, and hoped to satisfy others, that the diffi- 
culty, about his management of the family property, was only 
a part of that peculiarity of character, which developed itself, 
at last, in a more striking form ; but which, I believe, gov- 
erned his actions, from a very early period, in a degree, 
which rendered him less accountable, morally, than other 
men, and Avouid excuse, to every charitable mind, all that 
might, otherwise, have seemed amiss. 

But, whether I was right or wrong, in the conclusion to 
which my judgement brought me, after the fullest deliberation, 
it was my judgement, not Mr. William Boott's ; and whatever 
I have done, or said, in pursuing its dictates, is 7ny deed and 
word, not his. It is only a piece of Mr. Lowell's hasty 
assumption, and carelessness of justice, which, — for the sake 
of a short triLimph, and of a plausible excuse for attacking an 
important witness, under cover of self defence, — pretends to 
hold him responsible for that, which he never aided, did not 



65 

even approve, and in fact may, more properly, be said to have 
opposed. 

Thus much I am bound to declare, in justice to him ; and 
however Mr. WiUiam Boott may have aided me, formerly, by 
simply supplying his own testimony to the point of his 
brother's insanity, I desire to have it understood that his aid 
ceased there, and that I take upon myself, exclusively, the 
whole responsibility of the subject of accounts, and all that 
relates to pecuniary transactions, or to the duties of a trus- 
tee — viewing it as my misfortune, not less than that of the 
late Mr. J. Wright Boott, that I am absolutely compelled, 
by his disinterested friend, Mr. Lowell, to treat of them. 

Mr. Lowell's mode of dealing with Mrs. Lyman, — a lady, 
peculiarly circumstanced, alone and unprotected, — is less ex- 
cusable than his attack on Mr. William Boott. 

It will be remembered, by those, who have read my former 
pamphlet, and I now inform those, who have not, that this 
lady was no party, originally, to the controversy about Mr. 
J. Wright Boott's accounts, or the refusal to sign a deed ,• nor, 
in any way, to the effort, which led to his removal from the 
trust, by a volmitary resignation in pursuance of a compro- 
mise. She had, long before, conveyed to him all her right 
and title to the family property. Consequently, she neither 
had herself, nor represented, any personal interest whatever 
in those proceedings. The part she took in them, so far as 
she took any, was merely as a matter of feeling, and was en- 
tirely on his side. 

Mr. Lowell knew all this. Indeed he had, before him, my 
extract from a letter of Dr. Boott, written when the question of 
signing the deed was just beginning to be agitated, in which 
he desii'es Mr. William Boott, in advising his mother, to 
'' speak of J. W. B. as tenderly as possible ;" — and adds, 
" Mary's letter [Mrs. Lyman's] is full of generous appeals 
in his behalf?^ [B. App. p. 36.] Not only was this extract 
before him, but it would seem, from Dr. Boott's statement, 
as cited by Mr. Lowell, [L. p. 128], that the letter itself, from 
Mi's. Lyman, must have been, (unless destroyed, — which is 
not suggested and not likely,) in Mr. Lowell's own possession. 



66 

He uses others of her letters, written in the privacy of family 
confidence, which he thinks he can use to discredit her ; (I 
shall consider them in their place ;) but he makes no allusion 
to this letter of generous appeal in her brother's behalf. 

She had been much ill used by that brother. She did not, 
in his life-time, attribute it to insanity. Having had scarcely 
any intercourse with him for years, she did not believe him 
insane, at the time of her testimony at the coroner's inquest. 
Reflection, afterwards, and the opinions of others, coupled 
with the strange things she had herself seen and known of 
him, and especially with Mr. Lowell's account of the inco- 
herent, extravagant, and unfounded statements of his last 
letter, convinced her, finally, of the fact. Under legal advice, 
she appealed, it is true, from the probate of his will, on the 
ground of his insanity, and proposed to contest it, as she had 
a right to do, in the higher court. So far, she became 
actively opposed to Mr. Lowell, the executor of that will. 
Did she deserve to be subjected to any discomtesy for that ? 
If she did, she had, long since, voluntarily abandoned that 
suit, and abandoned it against her pecuniary interest, upon 
the same impulse of feeling towards her deceased brother, 
which had sometimes led her, in his life-time, into " generous 
appeals in his behalf." From that time to this, she has kept 
aloof from the controversy. 

She was no party to my pamphlet, directly or indirectly. Mr. 
Lowell, himself, does not suppose her to have been. He says, 
" she has, with great propriety, declined any participation in this 
posthumous attack." [L. p. 141.] Yet how does he treat her ? 
He procures and publishes a statement, from Dr. Jackson, of 
her demeanour and language, (as witnessed by that gentleman, 
on the occasion of his being called to see the body of Mr. 
Boott,) during the first paroxysms of a sister's agony of grief, 
at the shocking sight of a brother killed by his own hand. 
He embodies that in an argument, designed to show, that this 
brother was the victim of a conspiracy, to which she was a 
party. Particular expressions, uttered by her in this state of 
violent emotion, are published, without a word of explanation, 
as if they were the confessions of a criminal, to contradict 



67 

her calmer and more deliberate statements. He cites por- 
tions of her confidential letters, without her permission, and 
without citing other portions, which might have given them 
a different complexion, with the view of convicting her of 
falsehood in her statements at other times. He undertakes to 
array against her. Miss Sarah Wells, and Mrs. Wells, and even 
Mr. Wells, for the same object ; although he does not publish 
one word of statement from either of them. It all rests on his 
own statement. He repeats Mr. J. Wright Boott's insane 
idea, and undertakes to maintain and prove its reality, that 
she was tny spy over the conduct and actions of that unfor- 
tunate gentleman, and that she had been placed by me in 
his house for that purpose. Nay, he states as facts, with the 
same view of impeaching Mrs. Lyman, matters not known to 
himself, and of which he cites no proof, nor refers to any 
authority ; and taking it for granted that she would deny 
them, he interposes a threat to silence her, when he says, 
" I hold myself pledged to prove the accuracy of this state- 
ment, if denied by Mrs. Lyman." [L. p. 140.] Again he 
says, " Nor do I mean to allege, that Mr. Brooks ever knew 
the real state of the facts in relation to Mr. Boott's treatment 
of Mrs. Lyman. A misrepresentation exists somewhere." 
[L. p. 143.]* Why all these broad insinuations, and all but 
dii'ect charges, against a lady, who was no party to my pam- 
phlet, and whose former statements, connected with my narra- 
tive, had been referred to by me, as I myself declared, without 
her knowledge or concurrence ? [B. p. 156.] Is this courte- 
ous ? Is it manly ? Is it fair ? 

But, at the same time that he thus seeks to discredit this 
lady, he undertakes to make her a witness against me. He 
says, '' I must, however, do that lady the justice to say, that 
I am authorized to contradict nearly every thing, stated as on 
her authority, in Mr. Brooks's pamphlet." [L. p. 140.] Nearly 
every thing ! I do not know what that lady may have author- 
ized Mr. Lowell to say, in her behalf; but I have reason to 

* To prevent any possible mistake, I give notice that the Italics, above, are not 
Mr. Lowell's. In these pages, they may, generally, be understood to be my own, 
unless I state otherwise. 



68 

believe that her authority to contradict any statement of mine, 
was confined to two or three matters very unimportant, when 
coupled with the qualifying additions, which accompany the 
correction. My reason is, that I received a letter from the 
lady herself soon after the appearance of my pamphlet, by 
which it appeared, that, upon some sudden impulse of feeling, 
she had taken offence, I thought without just foundation, at 
some things in it ; and by which it also appeared, that she 
considered me to have misstated her in the particulars above 
referred to, which she wished me immediately to correct. 
Finding it not done so immediately as she desired, she, un- 
fortimately, thought proper to address Mr. Lowell, or his coun- 
sel, on the subject ; and we see how she is rewarded for that. 
The errors she stated to him were, no doubt, the same she 
had stated to me. A correction of these errors I intended 
to make, agreeably to her request, as soon as a fair oppor- 
tunity offered. I understood Mr. Lowell was about to give 
me the opportmiity. He has done so ; and I shall make the 
corrections when I speak of those subjects. But, when Mr. 
Lowell says he is " authorized to contradict nearly every thing 
stated as on her authority," in my pamphlet, this, I imagine, 
is only his mode of stating an authority to correct two or 
three small matters. 

In respect to them, they were my reports of former con- 
versations, not had with reference to this, or any other, par- 
ticular use of them ; and I did not consult her about them, 
while preparing my pamphlet, because I did not wish to im- 
plicate her in any such movement. It is very possible, therefore, 
that I may have misunderstood what I supposed I had heard 
from her. At any rate, I accept her amendments, which will 
not be found essential to the main matters in dispute. And, 
although I have no authority to say one word for that lady, and 
indeed she has expressed her desire that her name might not 
even be mentioned, (which is obviously impossible in the 
present state of the controversy, and after what has passed,) 
yet, without undertaking to answer Mr. Lowell's attack upon 
her so particularly as I otherwise might, I feel bound, at least, 
since I have been the means of bringing it upon her, to enter 



69 

my protest against such an unprovoked assault, by a man, and 
a man of strength in this community, against a woman — 
a lady of refinement, who never was a party to this contro- 
versy, and who has absolutely refused, and still refuses, to 
enter into any farther contest on these subjects, even for 
self-defence. 

Henceforth, at least, let there be no misunderstanding of 
the fact. I only am responsible for what I print ; and my 
complaint is of Mr. Lowell alone. The debate lies between 
him and me, exclusively ; and he cannot be allowed to divert 
attention from the question of his own conduct and of my 
conduct, by attempts to implicate others, for the sake of 
throwing discredit upon any statement derived from them, or 
by unfomided suggestions that he is, himself, made a mere 
cover to excuse a premeditated attack upon the dead. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

SYNOPSIS OF MR. LOWELL's ARGUMENT. OUR CORRESPONDENCE. 

It is time to turn to the more important and direct issues. 

Mr. Lowell, in his '' Reply," instead of confining himself 
to a mere line of defence, by showing, if he could, that the 
rimiours, which had grown up to my disadvantage and injury, 
did not originate in, or were not spread and sustained by, his 
declared opinions and statements, now takes bolder ground. 
He assumes, substantially, to justify the rumours themselves, 
as well founded. This he does by the following train of argu- 
ment : — 

His premises are, 

1. That the late Mr. J. Wright Boott was, in substance, " a 
remarkably good manager of trust property ;" [L. p. 97.] that 
as executor and trustee, he conducted the business of his 
father's estate, in the main, excellently well, and caused no 



70 

loss of it, either to immediate heirs, annuitants, or rever- 
sioners ; that the accomit of his executorship, as prepared by 
Mr. Lowell for settlement in the Probate Court, was full, 
accurate, and unexceptionable ; and, consequently, that any 
charges of mine, to the contrary of all this, must have been 
founded in error, if not in willfulness and spite. 

2. That Mr. J. Wright Boott was no more insane, at any 
period of his life, or in respect to any subject, than Mr. 
Lowell himself; and, as is intimated under a disclaimer, not 
near so much so as I am; 

3. That he was most unjustly persecuted, and cruelly ill- 
treated, by myself and wife, Mrs. Mary Lyman, and Mr. Wm. 
Boott, (and I think Mr. Robert C. Hooper is intended to be 
included,) as parties really leagued against him, to effect his 
ruin. This, indeed, is not, usually, averred by Mr. Lowell 
in open and direct terms, though, in one place, direct aver- 
ment is barely couched under an interrogative form ; [L. p. 146.] 
but it is, at any rate, a point fully argued, with all the ability 
and semblance of proof, that he can bring to bear upon it, as 
part of his reasoning on the question of Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
insanity, and under the guise of showing, that there were 
reasonable grounds for him, as a sane man, to believe in 
that conspiracy. 

4. That, being as perfectly sane as any man in the commu- 
nity, he, nevertheless, under such circumstances, killed himself. 

The inevitable conclusion, — not stated by Mr. Lowell, in his 
" Reply," but left for others to draw, — is, in conformity with 
the previous rumours, and in conformity with the belief infused 
into the minds of the jurors, that he was driven to suicide by 
the unmerited persecution of this knot of conspirators. 

Such is the argument, now written, printed, and most ex- 
tensively published, which Mr. Lowell gives me the oppor- 
tunity, and in effect challenges me, to answer. 

He has taken much pains to declare and insist, over and 
over again, that, in the late Mr. Boott's life-time, he was no 
party to the then existing controversy, concerning the state 
of mind and conduct of that gentleman ; that he knew nothing 
of its merits, refused to hear either side upon them, kept 



71 

himself perfectly impartial and aloof, espoused no cause, and 
had no personal interest in the disputed questions ; and that, 
when he came to be a witness before the coroner's jury, he 
stated nothing, but what his duty imperatively compelled, 
and nothing, which I, under the circumstances, had a right 
to complain of, or must not myself have stated, had I been 
a witness. [Letter from Mr. Lowell, B. p. 17.] 

Now I never charged Mr. Lowell, formerly, although he 
answers as if I had, with having any interest of property in 
these matters, other than that of being a lender, in his capacity 
of trustee for others, of large sums of money to Mr. J. Wright 
Boott, under peculiar circumstances, implicating the estate of 
his father; but in a manner nowise dishonourable, so far 
as I knew, to Mr. Lowell. Besides being such a lender of 
trust funds, he had been a former partner of Mr. J. Wright 
Boott, and there had been much confidence, and at differ- 
ent periods of his life, considerable pecuniary dealings be- 
tween them. So much I stated ; so much Mr. Lowell admits ; 
and all I charged upon him, in this respect, was, that these 
circumstances, and his own temperament, had made him a mere 
partisan, in the matters of controversy and discussion in the 
family relating to the late Mr. Boott, instead of being, as he 
was commonly reputed to be, an unprejudiced bystander, inti- 
mately acquainted with the parties and the facts, whose opin- 
ions were, therefore, entitled to the greatest weight. 

I never charged upon him, though he answers as if I 
had, that he deliberately and intentionally testified to that, 
which he knew to be mitrue ; but what I charged was, that 
he testified, like a zealous witness, under the strong biases 
and with the strong prejudices above described, disclosing 
facts, and withholding facts, so as to have produced, — what I 
did not charge him with intending, — false impressions, deeply 
injurious to me ; and that he did this without notice to me, 
and in fact without my knowledge, until eighteen months had 
elapsed. 

A further complaint was, that he had, since, been unwilling 
to do any thing to correct the false impressions he had occa- 
sioned ; and that, holding himself, or pretending to hold him- 



72 

self, above all chance of mistake, he would neither enquire, nor, 
so far as depended upon him, permit an inquiry, whether there 
was any thing to be corrected ; and that he even refused to 
give me such information, concerning his testimony, as might 
lead to a correction of the mistake, if there was one. 

That was the substance of my complaint, on this head, 
against Mr. Lowell, both as a witness, and as a gentleman, 
afterwards called upon to explain his testimony. There were 
other points of his conduct complained of; but not affecting 
the question of his interest and bias in this case. If any 
reader has understood a single passage of my former pamphlet 
otherwise than as now stated, I desire that it may be looked 
at again, and I think it will be found to contain nothing, in 
its language, exceeding what I now declare to have been the 
extent of my complaint, on that point, against Mr. Lowell. 
I confine my remark to the language oi vaj former pamphlet, 
because I had, at that time, no information of material facts, 
which have since come to my knowledge. The pages, which 
follow, written upon a different state of information, must 
speak for themselves. 

But, if any reader of that former pamphlet doubted whether 
I were well warranted, then, in charging Mr. Lowell with 
having filled the part of a mere partisan, before he was a 
witness, and while he was a witness, he cannot doubt it now, 
if he has been a reader of Mr. Lowell's '' Reply." He declares, 
in OUT correspondence, that he never testified to any thing, 
of which I have a right to complain, — that is, according to his 
notions of my rights and his assimiption of the facts in the 
case. But we see what he says now, deliberately, in print. 
We see what his ideas and opinions are declared to have been, 
on the subjects, to which his testimony related. We see, by 
those declarations, what his testimony on some points must, 
necessarily, have been, if he alluded to those matters ; and 
he does not pretend to deny that he did allude to them, 
although he says he did so in a way that I have no right to 
complain of. I think otherwise. That was the great gen- 
eral issue between us, involving many particulars, and among 
them Mr. J. Wright Boott's character and conduct as a trustee. 



to 



This question, what ]V§. Lowell's testimony was before the 
jury of inquest, has now become, comparatively, unimportant ; 
because all the promulgation of opinion, statement of fact, 
allegation, and insinuation, whatsoever, which he conveyed 
to the jurors at the coroner's inquest, or to other persons 
at other times, directly or indirectly, are now swallowed up 
in one publication, under his own pen and name, speaking for 
itself, in unmistakable language, and from which he has no 
retreat. 

Still, it is quite material, in reference to his and my accu- 
racy, and the credibility of witnesses, and the motives and 
merits of our respective publications, and the purpose of the 
correspondence, which led to them, and the Avhole course 
of his and my proceedings, to see how the matter now stands, 
according to my former statement and his reply, upon the 
question, what his former testimony was. 

Did I make an unfounded charge there ? And how are my 
proofs answered ? 

And here, let me remark, the "Reply" begins with mis- 
stating the gist, — if I may borrow an expressive term from the 
lawyers, — of the correspondence between us. Mi'. Lowell 
states, that the allegation in my letters was, (and he prints it 
in those same emphasizing Italics, which he thinks so intol- 
erable when used by me,) that, at the inquest on the body 
of Mr. Boott, he had testified, directly, that Mr. Boott '' had 
been driven to the act of suicide by unjust and injurious 
charges of mismanagement of his father's estate, and that 
Mr. Brooks was named by me [Mr. Lowell] as one of the 
authors of these charges." [L. p. 2.] 

This, I say, is a mere misstatement of my original com- 
plaint ; and I refer, in proof, to the correspondence, printed in 
my former pamphlet ; [B. pp. 12-25.] especially to my letter 
of Dec. 15, [B. p. 18.] which contains a summary of all that 
had preceded it, showing how the substance of my inquiries 
had been evaded, and pointing, for the third time, to that, 
which I desired most to be informed upon. I did not charge 
him with having testified, in direct terms, as he above states. 
I told him, in my first letter, that through his statements, as 

10 



74 

I was informed, the jury were led*to believe what he above 
states ; and I detailed, in substance, the particulars^ which I 
understood he had communicated to the jury, and which 
had led them to that belief; namely, that he had inves- 
tigated Mr. Boott's accounts, and had found that there was 
no ground whatever for any suspicion of improper manage- 
ment of the business ; and that, instead of Mr. Boott's owing 
any thing to the estate, a clear balance of $25,000 was 
ascertained to be due, from the estate to him, for volun- 
tary and gratuitous advances ; and that, notwithstanding this, 
some of the heirs refused to sign the deed of the house until 
the accounts should be settled, and the property placed in 
other hands ; to which /ac^5, it was said, an expression of opin- 
ion was added, that these unjust and injurious proceedings had 
led to the suicide ; and I told him, further, that I was in- 
formed that he had used my name in connexion with those 
statements. 

His answer denied the use of my name " in connexion 
tvith the unhappy dissensions in Mr. Bootfs family, ^^ and 
denied the expression of ''any opinion as to the merits or 
demerits of the parties engaged in them,^^ but gave me no 
information as to the particular allegations of fact^ which 
I had inquired about, nor as to the expression of opiiiion con- 
cerning the cause of the suicide. 

My second letter called his attention to this, as not meeting 
the inquiry, and pressed for an answer to the unanswered 
matters. 

His reply, suggesting that he might well have claimed, as a 
witness, to be exempted from such inquiries, insists, neverthe- 
less, that he had already sufficiently answered them, and gives 
no further answer, except to deny, — though rather by implica- 
tion than directly, — the expression of the opinion '' that any 
unjust and injurious proceedings towards Mr. Boott led to his 
death," and to assure me, generally, that he had given no 
testimony, of which I, in his opinion, " could have a right to 
complain." 

My third letter showed, pointedly, wherein his former an- 
swers were insufficient, and that they left me still uninformed, 



75 

by him, as to the facts he had stated. From that I now 
make the following extract. 

'' The whole substance of yom* testimony, as reported to 
me, in my view of the matter, lies in toJiat was said con- 
cerning YOUR EXAMINATION OF THE ACCOUNTS, and ITS RESULTS 
AS FOUND BY YOU, AND COMMUNICATED TO THE HEIRS, COnUected 

icith what ivas said co7icerning the previous complaints of 
the heirs, their suhsequeiit conduct, and the fatal result, 
which followed. My inquiry is, whether that was, substan- 
tially, your statement, or whether I have been misinformed 
about it. If you think I have no right to ask you that, be- 
cause you were speaking as a witness, I pray you to say so 
distinctly. Otherwise, I pray you to answer, distinctly, my 
original inquiry ; or, if there was any indistinctness in that, 
my inquiry as I now put it ; whether you did, or did not, 
make a statement to that effect, or what statement, substan- 
tially, you did make on that subject." [B. p. 22.] 

The answer to this was a mere refusal, though in respect- 
ful terms, to give any fmther information on the subject ; and 
so all explanation, and hope of explanation through Mr. Low- 
ell, ended. 

Does Mr. Lowell then state, or does he mzs-state, the sub- 
stance of what my letters alleged his testimony to be ? 

What I desire to call attention to, particularly, in the cor- 
respondence, is, that he shirked, and evaded all information 
whatever on the subject of his own testimony about the ac- 
counts, as proof that Mr. Boott had \)eQn falsely charged by 
me with mismanagement of his father's estate. 



76 



CHAPTER IX. 

completeness of my proof respecting the substance of mr. 
Lowell's testimony at the inquest. 

Starting with this erroneous assumption of the tenor of our 
correspondence, IMr. Lowell proceeds to endeavour to disprove 
a different charge from that, which was made. It is needless 
to inquire how effectually he has done this ; but it may be 
proper to see how far he has altered, or modified, the case, 
as it really stood, upon the evidence I afterwards produced ; 
for, in my pamphlet, I stood upon the evidence, and not 
upon the mere information referred to in my letters. 

That evidence was the formal declarations, in writing, be- 
fore a magistrate, of Jive, out of six, of the persons, who com- 
posed the coroner's jury. The declarations were taken, after 
due notice to Mr. Lowell of the time and place appointed for 
the purpose, with a request that he would attend personally, 
and bring counsel with him, if he pleased. [B. p. 24.] In 
respect to the remaining jiu-yman, my notice was as follows : 
'• I have not spoken to Dr. Putnam, the sixth juryman, on ac- 
count of his delicate position as a brother-in-law of yours ; 
but I should be glad to have his statement also, if agreeable 
to you and himself." It appears not to have been agreeable 
to Mr. Lowell, either to invite Dr. Putnam, or to attend him- 
self. In fact, it was not agreeable to him, it seems, that any 
body should attend ; for he took some pains, through his 
counsel and the coroner, to prevent the other jurymen from 
doing so. [B. p. 25.] All five, however, did attend ; and as 
Mr. Lowell did not, I was compelled to proceed ea: parte, in 
taking their testimony. To that testimony I now refer, 
printed in full in my former pamphlet, [B. pp. 27-31.] ; and, 
for the convenience of the reader, I extract the following 
summary : — 



77 

" Now upon the first point denied by Mr. Lowell — the use of my 
individual name — two of the five jurymen, Mr. Learnard and Mr. 
Dyke, positively affirm it, A third, Dr. Palmer, says it is his im- 
pression. Mr. Learnard recollects, that ' he particularly mentioned 
the name of Mr. Edward Brooks, as one of such heirs.' Mr. Dyke 
says, ' He stated, in particular, the name of Mr. Edward Brooks, as 
among the heirs who so refused to sign the deed.' All agree that 
the heirs were spoken of — which included me by description, and 
must have been so understood by every person, who knew my con- 
nexion with the family. 

" Upon the second point denied by Mr. Lowell, namely, the ex- 
pression of any opinion upon the merits or demerits of the parties, 
or that there had been any unjust and injurious proceedings of the 
heirs towards the deceased, Mr. Andrews says, ' The impression I 
got, from what Mr, Loiuell said, was, that the refusal of the heirs to 
sign the deed affected his mind, and was probably the remote cause 
of his deafh.^ Dr. Palmer says, ' From what I heard of the evidence 
of Mr, Lowell, I should have had a, very unfavourable impression of 
Mr. Edward Brooks, had I not known him before.' ' It was ex- 
pressed, that Mr. Boott had been unfairly croivded by the heirs, dur- 
ing the time he had been executor.' He ' represented this result as 
a decided vindication of Mr. Boott against the unfounded charges 
of the heirs.' ' My impression was, that this croivding by the heirs 
had affected his mind, and that it had depressed him so it might have 
led to his death.' Mr. Learnard says, ' He said Mr. Brooks was a 
violent man J ' The impression he left on my mind was, that the 
conduct of the heirs, in thus refusing to sign the deed, might be the 
cause of Mr. Bootfs deathJ Mr. Dyke says, ' He stated, that Mr. 
Boott was a man of such fine feelings and such integrity, that this re- 
fusal so operated upon his mind as to cause his death.' Mr. Brown 
says, ' I merely recollect, in general, that Mr. Loioell attributed the 
death of Mr. Boott to the unhappy difficulties in the family, especially 
in relation to the estate.' 

" These seem to me sufficient expressions, or indications, of Mr. 
Lowell's opinion touching the merits and demerits of parties, who may 
have differed with Mr. Wright Boott, or with each other, upon any 
controverted matter respecting his conduct. 

" Upon the third point, which I regard as the most important, 
namely, the testimony, which Mr. Lowell declined giving me any in- 
formation upon, there is no material difiference among the witnesses, 
so far as they undertake to give the particulars. Mr. Andrews says, 
]Mr. Lowell testified, that the heirs ' had refused to sign the deed, on 
the giound that the estate had been mismanaged,' — but 'that it 
proved, on an investigation of the executor s accounts, that there was 
no foundation for supposing that the estate had been mismanaged ; 
that he, Mr. Lowell, assisted Mr. Boott in making up his accounts, by 
which it appeared, that a clear balance was due from the estate to 
Mr. Boott, to the sum of S 25,000.' Dr. Palmer, after saying that 
' it was expressed, that Mr. Boott had been unfairly crowded by the 
heirs,' adds, ' he stated that Mr. Boott had a great aversion to figures, 
and to making out accounts ; and that he, Mr. Lowell, made out his 



78 

accounts for him; and, on completing his accounts, he discovered 
that, instead of Mr. Boott being indebted to the estate, the estate was 
debtor to him, in the sum of S 25,000. He, Mr. Lowell, represented 
this result as a decided vindication of Mr. Boott against the un- 
founded charges of the heirs, as to the management of his estate.' 
Mr. Learnard says, ' He said, the heirs summoned Mr. Boott into 
court to render his accounts ; and that he, Mr. Loivelh as a friend of 
the family, examined, into the accounts, and found that there was a 
balance due from the estate to Mr. Boott of $25,000.' Mr. Dyke 
says, he stated that ' ihe heirs, among whom was Mr. Edward Brooks, 
refused to sign the deed of the property, because, as I understood him, 
he had mismanaged the estate.^ ' It was stated by him that the accounts 
were examined, and a balance was found due to Mr. Boott of about 
$25,000.' Mr. Broivn, without undertaking to state particulars, 
says, he recollects in general, ' that Mr. Lowell aitributed the death 
of Mr. Boott to the unhappy difficulties in the family, especicdly in 
relation to the estate.^" [B. pp. 31-33.] 

To this may be added another extract from the testimony 
of Mr. Andrews, namely, — '^ It was my impression, from all I 
heard and saw, that Mr. Lowell was extremely anxious to 
have Mi. Boott made out a sane man." [B. p. 33.] 

Now what says JMr. Lowell to all this ? 

His first remark is, that " the object of Mr. Brooks was not 
to elicit the truth ; otherwise he would have summoned all the 
persons present at the inquest. These were nine in number, 
the coroner, six jmymen, Mr. Kirk Boott, and myself. Of 
these five only were examined before the magistrate." [L. 
p. 3.] 

Mr. Lowell, here, affects to consider it objectionable, that he 
was not summoned, and permitted to state what his former 
testimony was. Can any thing be more ridiculous? Had 
I not already called upon him by letter, and urged him, again 
and again, to make that statement ? Had he not evaded, as long 
as it was possible, and finally refused to answer, those inqui- 
ries, on which, I told him, I laid the greatest stress ? Had I not 
next invited, and urged him by repeated notices, to present 
himself, in person, before the magistrate, at the time of the 
examination, where he might have heard the witnesses, and 
put such questions as he wished, and might also have made 
his own declaration, if he pleased ? 

But he says, that, after consulting his advisers, '' the invita- 



79 

tion was viewed, by me and by them, simply as an insult, and 
was met, as it deserved to be, with silent contempt." [L. p. 3.] 

Indeed ! Fair notice, and an opportiuiity offered to be 
present at an inquiiy concerning himself, were viewed as an 
insult ! What would he have said, had I proceeded, in such 
an inquiry without giving him any notice at all ? Or what, 
if I had sent him a formal siunmmis to appear as a witness, 
with the view of compelling him to state what he had re- 
fused to state voluntarily, and said I had no right even to ask 
him ? [Letter from Mr. Lowell, B. p. 16.1 Would not that 
have been an insult too ? Would he not have treated that, 
also, with "silent contempt?" — knowing, as he did, or if not, 
learning, as he would, from his counsel, that he was under 
no legal obligation to obey such a summons, and that, in 
the absence of any suit pending, he could not be compelled 
to testify, especially not to testify against himself. 

So, in respect to the sixth juryman, — is it not amusing to 
hear Mr. Lowell complain, that I did not summon Dr. Put- 
nam, when he was informed, that I omitted to do so only 
" on account of his delicate position as a brother-in-law ; " 
and that '• I should be glad to have his statement, also, if 
agreeable to you [Mr. Lowell] and himself"? As a point of 
comtesy merely, I had studiously avoided calling Dr. Putnam 
to be a witness against Mr. Lowell ; but that Mr. Lowell 
might not be prejudiced thereby, I begged him to produce 
that witness himself. Yet Mr. Lowell complains, that he 
was not produced^ and argues from it that my object was 
" not to elicit the truth " ! 

It is true, that, in addition to the juryraen, I might have 
called the coroner, and I might have called Mr. Kirk Boott ; 
and so could Mr. Lowell, if his object had been that the truth 
should be elicited. But what had either of these persons to 
do with the taking of the testimony at the inquest ? Mr. 
Kirk Boott, though present, was only a s})ectator. He took 
no part in the proceedings. In fact, I doubt if I even knew, 
at the time I examined the jurors, whether he was present at 
the whole hearing, or not. The corone::, I of course knew 
must officially have presided ; but I also knew, that it was the 



80 

business of the jury, under their oaths, and not of the coroner, 
to receive and weigh the evidence, and to render a true verdict 
upon it. They were, therefore, the proper persons, as it 
seemed to me, — and not the coroner, nor Mr. Kirk Boott, — by 
whom to prove what the testimony was, upon which they 
acted. 

The real case, therefore, is this : The whole audience, at 
that inquest, consisted of eight persons only, besides the party, 
whose testimony is in question. Of those eight, six were 
sworn to find a verdict upon the evidence. One was a pre- 
siding officer, who had no such duty to perform; and one 
was a mere bystander. The party himself is called upon, by 
letter, to state what his own testimony had been, and refuses. 
He is then invited to be present at an examination of the jurors, 
and he treats the invitation with '' silent contempt." Five of 
the six jurors, having no connexion with either of the parties 
concerned in the inquiry, are summoned for examination. 
The sixth, being intimately connected with the party, whose 
former testimony was in question, is not summoned, for that 
reason ; but the party is requested to produce him, if he 
pleases, and he does not. The five, who were summoned, are 
all examined. Yet, we are told, the object of this inquiry 
could not have been " to elicit the truth," because the pre- 
siding officer, and the mere bystander and the sixth jmyman, 
whom the party did not choose to produce, and the party 
himself, who had refused to disclose the matter in question, 
and would not even be present at an inquiry about it, were 
not examined also ! 

Now, ordinarily, I suppose two or three intelligent, unim- 
peached, and uncontradicted witnesses, of the same fact, are 
as good evidence of it as a hundred. If the question be, what 
had occurred in a crowded court-room, must one summon the 
whole auditory, instead of two or three such witnesses, selected 
from those, whose attention was solemnly called to the occur- 
rence, at the time, in the discharge of a sworn duty ? Or, if he 
does not, is he to be told, that the omission shows that he does 
not wish to arrive at the truth ? So far from being faulty in 
the number of my witnesses, I think most persons will con- 



81 

sider, that I went to an extreme, in calling every juror save 
one, and inviting the other party to bring that one. 

But, after all, the only important inquiry is, whether the 
witnesses, who were not called, would, or could, have mate- 
rially contradicted those, who were called, on the main points 
in question. From their present statements, published by 
Mr. Lowell, I hold it to be clear that they could not. Tiiis 
we shall see presently. 

But, Mr. Lowell supposes I must have had some particular 
motive, in not calling the coroner ; and says it was, that I li'id 
'' ascertained beforehand " that he would not sustain me. [L. 
p. 4.] Now I had a better reason than that, besides the 
reason that he was not sworn, as the jurors were, to attend 
to the evidence. My additional reason was, that he had 
stated the same transaction one way at one time, and another 
way at another time, — and that within three or four days 
after its occurrence. I refer to his contradictory statements 
to Mr. Dexter and to Mr. Loring, respecting his knowledge of 
the contents of the letter produced by Mr. Lowell at the in- 
quest. [B. pp. 151-153.] After that, how was it possible 
for me to place great reliance on the accm-acy of his recollec- 
tions and statements a year and a half later ? 

But why did I not call my young friend, Mr. Kirk Boott ? 
asks Mr. Lowell. Certainly, not from any like distrust of him ,• 
but, simply, for the reasons, that he had no official connexion 
with the inquest ; that there were witnesses enough without 
him ; and that I did not wish to implicate him, unnecessarily, 
any more than Dr. Putnam, in a proceeding, which would ap- 
pear somewhat adverse to Mr. Lowell, whose friendship, in 
many ways, I believed to be valuable to him. Mr. Lowell, 
however, thinks he sees a different motive ; and says, ''I am 
authorized by Mr. Kirk Boott to say, Mr. Brooks knew, from 
his own lips, before his book was printed, that he would not 
have sustained him." [L. p. 4.] 

Observe, — Mi\ Lowell is careful to say, only that I knew 
this before my book xoas printed, — not that I knew it at the 
time of the examination. But, even as Mr. Lowell states it, 
I strongly suspect an over-statement. I cannot think that that 



82 

gentleman, (Mr. K. Boott,) meant to authorize the idea, 
clearly held out by Mr. Lowell, that he would contradict, 
generally, the statements of the jurors, as printed by me. I 
shall not believe that, until I learn it from ]\Ir. K. Boott him- 
self. 

I had never held any conversation with that gentleman, on 
this subject, at the time of the examination. Long after, and 
when my book was in fact partly printed, I had one for the 
first and only time, not sought by me, but arising, acciden- 
tally, upon the occasion of his calling at my office for a dif- 
ferent pm^pose, — a purpose of business, connected Avith the 
trust under his father's will, which led me to speak of Mr. 
Lowell, who was associated with me in that trust. 

In the course of the remarks then made, I alluded to the 
testimony at the inquest, and referred, particularly, to Dr. 
Palmer's statement, that Mr. Lowell "represented this result," 
— that is, the result of the accounts, — " as a decided vindica- 
tion of Mr. Boott, against the unfoimded charges of the heirs, 
as to the management of his estate." [B. p. 28.] I think 
I read the statement to him, from Dr. Palmer's wTitten declar- 
ation. Mr. K. Boott thereupon remarked, either, that he did 
not hear Mr. Lowell say that, or, that he did not recollect 
hearing Mr. Lowell say that ; "but," he immediately added, 
" there was considerable conversation hetiveen Mr. Loioell 
and the jurors, after the inquest was over, lohich I did not 
distinctly overhear ; and he might have said it then.'''' 

This, so far as I recollect, was the whole extent of Mr. K. 
Boott's contradiction, — if it deserves to be called so, — in that 
conversation, of any expression, or representation, attributed 
by either of the jurors to Mr. Lowell. Mr. Lowell, however, 
says, in the most general terms, that I knew from Mr. K. 
Boott himself, that he would not have sustained me ; as if he 
would not have confirmed the jurors in any 'part of their 
testimony ! He repeats [L. p. 15.] that " he [Brooks] had been 
expressly informed by Mr. Kirk Boott, that he well remem- 
bered, that I [Mr. Lowell] had not given any such testimony 
to the jury as Mr. Brooks alleged!-^ And he complains 



Or 



— ''Yet the benefit of this statement of Mr. Kirk Boott is 
no where given to me throughout the book." [L. p. 4.] 

Now 1, certainly, should not have had the least objection, 
except from a desire not to implicate Mr. K. Boott, unneces- 
sarily, in this business, to have given Mr. Lowell the full 
benefit of that gentleman's statement, as it was actually made 
to me, and as I have now given it above, if he can find any 
benefit in it. It does not strike me as mending Mr. Lowell's 
case. To me it is quite indiflferent, whether, what he said to 
the jurors was said in the form of testimony, or otherwise. 
But if, after the inquest was over, he entered, gratuitously, into 
conversation with the jurors, and thereby enlarged, or quali- 
fied, the effect of any thing he had just said as a witness, so 
much the tuorse, as it seems to me, for Mr. Lowell. 

The substance of my complaint is, that, by what he said to 
those gentlemen, and by his manner of saying it, he conveyed 
erroneous impressions, injurious to me. I do not say, that he 
intended to do so, but I say such was the fact. If, imme- 
diately following his testimony, th-ere was, as now appears 
from Mr. K. Boott, and will presently appear by another wit- 
ness, a desultory conversation besides, in which he took part, 
it would be natural enough for the jury, in giving an account 
of Avhat Mr. Lowell had said, after the lapse of eighteen 
months, to blend the conversation with the testimony, — 
especially when nothing occurred to call their attention to 
the distinction : and the effect, on them, of a statement from 
Mr. Lowell, would be the same, whether made under oath 
or not. But if it were made, in a mere conversation^ what 
becomes of Mr. Lowell's excuse, that he could not avoid say- 
ing what he did, because he was under the obligation of 
a witness ? [Letter from Mr. Lowell, B. p. 17.] That Dr. 
Palmer and other jurors did, in one way or the other, derive 
the impression, from what Mr. Lowell said, and from his 
manner of saying it, that he meant to represent the state of 
the accounts as "a decided vindication" of the late Mr. Boott, 
against the charge of mismanagement, made by some of the 
heirs, can not be doubted, if Dr. Palmer and the other jurors 
are believed. And Mr. K. Boott said nothing to me, and says 



84 



nothing now, in his printed statement, [L. p. 13.] which tends 
to contradict Dr. Palmer, as to the facts, which he says were 
stated by Mr. Lowell, nor as to the manner, in which those 
facts were stated. They produced on Dr. Palmer, and on the 
other jurors, a particular impression, which may not have been 
produced on Mr. K. Boott, either because he did not hear what 
they heard, or because of previous opinions and feelings, 
which affected him, and did not affect strangers. Mr. Lowell, 
certainly, now represents the accounts as a positive vindication 
of the late Mr. Boott's management. And since he does not 
deny, that he spoke of the accounts at the inquest, it may 
fairly be inferred, that he, in effect, did so represent them on 
that occasion, even if Dr. Palmer and Mr. K. Boott should 
happen to disagree in their recollections of particular ex- 
pressions used ; still more, if words were addressed to Dr. 
Palmer, in conversation, which Mr. K. Boott admits he did 
not hear. How could Mr. Lowell, if he believes what he now 
prints, have spoken of the accounts, then, otherwise than as 
he speaks of them now ? 

Indeed, it is the more probable, that this representation 
of the accounts, as vindicating the late Mr. Boott against 
false charges, may have been made during the colloquy, which 
followed the inquest, and which Mr. K. Boott said he did 
not hear, from the fact, that Dr. Palmer's strong impression 
about it was derived, not merely from the words used by Mr. 
Lowell, but also from his extremely emphatic maimer of de- 
livering them, with his right arm raised in the air^ — which 
would have been very unsuitable for a witness, calmly deliv- 
pring his testimony upon oath. 

This, it is true, does not appear in Dr. Palmer's written 
declaration before the magistrate ; for this witness appeared, 
as the witnesses did ger^erally, extremely cautious not to 
make over-strong statements ; and this excessive caution, some- 
times, Jed them to soften expression^ and descriptions, to a 
lower point than the truth would have justified. But any 
body, who is curious enough to inquire of Dr. Palmer, I have 
no doubt, will find the truth to be as I now state ; and that 
the words actually used by Mr. L^owell, in this emphatic 



85 

manner, were " triumphant vindication." So Dr. Palmer has 
stated to me, and to others. The fact, of the fna7iner of 
making such a statement, will not be incredible to those who 
are acquainted with Mr. Lowell. 

I should add, that I was not acquainted with this fact of a 
conversation, in addition to the testimony, at the time of the 
examination of the jurors, and consequently their attention 
was not called to it. I shall presently prove the fact by an- 
other of Mr. Lowell's witnesses. 



CHAPTER X. 
MR. Lowell's charge against me of tampering with the 

WITNESSES. 

Mr. Lowell, next proceeds, to suggest, that I had prepared 
the witnesses, by previous conversations ; or, in other words, 
had taught them what to say ; and that the examination was, 
in other respects, unfairly conducted. [L. p. 4 et seq.] Yery 
flattering this, both to the witnesses and to the magistrate, as 
well as to me. I take it to be one of those " petty insinua- 
tions," with which Mr. Lowell says my pamphlet abounds. 
[L. p. 20.] But let us see upon what this imputation is 
foimded. 

The supposed tampering with the witnesses, appears to be 
a mere inference, by Mr. Lowell, from certain statements, said 
to have been made by Mr. Coroner Pratt, respecting my con- 
versations, not with any one of those witnesses, but ivith the 
coroner himself. [L. p. 5.] The evidence of these state- 
ments, of Mr. Pratt, is said to be a memorandum, made by 
Mr. Lowell's counsel, Charles G. Loring, Esq. Dec. 19, 1846, 
of an interview he had just held with Mr. Pratt. This date, 
it will be observed, is the day after my notice to Mr. Lowell, 



86 

that I had requested the five jurors to appear before John Phelps 
Putnam, Esq. on Monday the 21st of Dec, for the purpose of 
taking their testimony. [B. p. 24.] Though Mr. Lowell 
treated my notice, otherwise, with '' silent contempt," it seems, 
he did not, after all, so utterly despise it, but that he thought 
it prudent to have his counsel see the coroner in the mean 
time ; and the effect of the interview appears to have been, 
that the coroner called on the several members of the jury, or, 
at least, on three of them, who spoke of it afterwards, and en- 
deavoured to deter them, severally, from appearing before the 
magistrate, at the time and place appointed. [B. pp. 25, 26.] 
This circumstance, to which Mr. Lowell's attention was 
called, by a letter from me, at the time, and which was par- 
ticularly stated in my former pamphlet, is not denied by Mr. 
Lowell to have been a movement proceeding from him. 

But, to return to the interview between Mr. Loring and 
Mr. Pratt. Since the evidence, of what was said by Mr. Pratt, 
lies in Mr. Loring's memorandum, it would have been more 
satisfactory, certainly, if the memorandum itself had been 
printed, that we might know the whole of the conversation, 
so far as it appears by that paper ; and when question is made, 
by Mr. Lowell, of the fairness of my proceedings in the tak- 
ing of testimony, I cannot but remark, that, when Mr. Lowell 
caused the coroner's statements to be taken down in writing, 
on two different occasions, (viz. an interview with Mr. Loring, 
mentioned in his letter to Mr. Dexter of March 12, 1845, 
[B. App. p. 61.] and this second interview of Dec. 19, 1846,) 
I should have been far from considering myself insulted^ if 
he had given me notice', and an opportunity to be present, 
either in person, or by my counsel, at those examinations. I 
had no such notice ; and in respect to this second interview, 
we have no knowledge of the contents of Mr. Loring's memo- 
randum, except from Mr. Lowell's account of it. Without 
claiming to quote its exact language, he says, — " From a 
memorandum made," &c. ''it appears that Mr. Brooks had 
made many applications to him (the coroner) on the subject 
of the inquest," and, among other things, had inquired, 
'■'• whether there had not been improper management, in get- 



87 

ting Dr. Putnam put upon the jury, and whether Mr. Lowell 
had not suggested the questions put to the witnesses, and 
otherwise interfered at the inquest, and that he [Mr. Pratt] 
had replied, that Mr. Lowell had had nothing to do with it, 
and would not have been allowed to meddle, if disposed ;" — 
and "that Mr. Brooks had, repeatedly, asked him about the 
use of several ' little words ' by Mr. Lowell at the hearing." 
'•From this," says Mr. Lowell, ''we may mfer, how he had 
dealt with those members of the jury^ whom he saw before 
the examination, and afterwards summoned to be present at 
it." [L. p. 5.] 

Now, if Mr. Lowell really wishes to knew, how I had dealt 
Avith the members of the jury, or any of them, and what in- 
fluence I had used to corrupt their testimony, I advise him to 
apply to those gentlemen themselves for information, instead 
of making inferences about it, from Avhat the coroner says of 
my conversations Avith him^ held without reference to the 
taking of testimony at all, but simply for my own informa- 
tion on certain points. And here, I would remark, that when 
the memorandum is referred to by Mr. Lowell, as showing 
that Mr. Pratt said I had made " many " applications to him, 
and that I hptd " repeatedly " asked him about the use of 
these " little words," either Mr. Pratt, or the memorandum, 
or Mr. Lowell, is egregiously mistaken. 

I made some inquiries of Mr. Pratt at one time, soon after 
the inquest, about the course of proceeding, and among other 
things inquired, how Mr. Lowell's brother-in-law. Dr. Put- 
nam, happened to be upon the jury ; for that seemed to me a 
remarkable accident, if it was an accident. Some inquiries 
were also made, either by me, or for me, about the same time, 
concerning the contents of the letter, and concerning Avhat 
Avas said of it at the inquest ; Avhich, I presume, are the " little 
Avords " spoken of. Upon another occasion, before the date 
of Mr. Loring's memorandum, I exchanged a fcAV words Avith 
Mr. Pratt, on another point connected Avith the proceedings. 
But I have not the least recollection, or belief, of ever having 
asked him, upon any occasion, " Avhether Mr. LoAvell had 
not suggested the questions put to the Avitnesses," or of re- 



88 

ceiving from him any " indignant denial," of which Mr. 
Lowell complains I have not given him the benefit. If there 
had been any such denial, and especially any indignation in 
it, I think I should have recollected the circumstance, and 
would, certainly, have given Mr. Lowell the full benefit of 
that. 

The truth is, I never got much information of any kind 
from the coroner, though it seems to have flowed freely 
enough in the other direction ; and after the discrepance in 
his statements about the letter, above referred to, I had 
but one conversation with him on any subject, until after Mr. 
Lowell's publication. But, on the 13th of April, 1848, he 
happened to call at my office, to see, on some official busi- 
ness, another gentleman, who was then a temporary inmate 
of my office. Finding me, Mr. Pratt himself introduced 
this subject, by remarking, that Mr. Lowell had sent him 
a copy of his pamphlet, and by asking for a copy of mine. 
I then availed myself of the opportunity, thus proffered, 
to hold a few minutes conversation with him ; and, as 
Mr. Lowell had taught me how that business should be 
done, I requested the other gentleman, who was present, to 
make a memorandum of what passed, though not without 
fair notice to Mr. Pratt, by making the request aloud. This 
memorandum I shall, shortly, print. At present, I have only 
to remark, that Mr. Pratt confirmed, on that occasion, the 
statement made by Mr. Kirk Boott, and said, '' There was a 
general conversation after the inquest ; Mr. Loioell talked 
with the jury.^^ But, he added, — and I pray Mr. Lowell to 
take the benefit of it, — "I did not hear him say any thing 
against you.^^ Some of the jurors, it seems, thought other- 
wise ; and as they state what he did say, the reader may 
judge for himself, whether it was, in its natm'al effect, agai7ist 
me, or not. I never supposed it was, in form, a mere i7ivec- 
tive, — which may be Mr. Pratt's idea of speaking against 
a man. Dr. Palmer says, in his declaration, " From what I 
heard of the evidence of Mr. Lowell, I should have had a 
very unfavourable impression of Mr. Edward Brooks, had I 
not known him before." Indeed, Dr. Palmer told me, that 



89 

he never saw me, afterwards, in the street, without thinking, 
on what ]\ir. Lowell had said of me, and wondering if it could 
possibly he true. 



CHAPTER XI. 

HOW DR. PUTNAM CAME TO BE UPON THE JURY. NO ATTACK 
MADE BY ME ON DR. PUTNAM. 

One other extract, from the memorandum, in my possession, 
of this last mentioned conversation with the coroner, may now 
be made. It is in the following words, — Mr. Pratt speaking : 
— ^' I said I should want one good physician on the jury. 
Mr. Lowell said, Dr. Putnam is at the house, and will he 
a good man. I knew Dr. P., and mentioned his name to 
the officer who summoned the jmy. This was before Dr. 
Palmer was summoned." 

The coroner had informed me, on the same subject, soon 
after the inquest, that he found Dr. Putnam with Mr. Lowell 
at the house, when he went there, and that Mr. Lowell 
asked him to put Dr. Putnam on the jury ; — to which he an- 
swered, that the constable had gone to summon a list ; but that 
the constable himself was to be one of the jury, as he usu- 
ally was, and that he (the coroner) could leave off the consta- 
ble, and put Dr. Putnam on in his place, — and that he did 
so. Which, of these two accounts, is in exact accordance 
with the reality, or whether either of them is, is more than 1 
can say. They both agree, however, in the main fact, that 
Dr. Putnam came to be a member of the jury through Mr. 
LowelVs suggcstio7i. 

Of this fii'st conversation, there was no witness but myself; 
and, though I relied on my own recollection of it, I did not rely 
on Mr. Pratt's ; and therefore, when I alluded, in my pam- 



90 

phlet, to such information, as received from some quarter, I 
did not name my authority, lest my statement of it should, 
possibly, meet with a contradiction from Mi. Pratt. But, 
being now provided with a memorandum, made by a third 
party, of a subsequent conversation, heard by him, which, 
though it describes some of the circumstances differently, 
substantiates the principal matter, I now refer to what I had 
formerly heard from the coroner, in order to show, that I had 
good ground, although I did not then disclose it, for certain 
comments. 

And now, let us see, what Mr. Lowell says about this : — 

" If Mr. Brooks is to be believed, I not only endeavoured to influ- 
ence the verdict of the jury by my own testimony, and by suggesting 
questions to be put to the other witnesses, but I also managed to get 
Dr. Putnam put upon the jury. 'One,' says Mr. Brooks, [p. 26.] 
' who had not been originally summoned for the purpose, was at the 
house, by the invitation, I believe, of Mr. Lowell, and was put upon 
the jury, by Mr. Lowell's suggestion to the coroner, as I am informed. 
This was Dr. Putnam, a brother-in-law of Mr. Lowell.' 

" This paragraph, it was hoped, would answer the double purpose 
of throwing a suspicion of unfair management upon me, and of dis- 
crediting beforehand the testimony of Dr. Putnam. Who Mr. 
Brooks's informant v\^as, we are not told ; it seems, however, from Mr. 
Loring's memorandum of December 19, 1846, above cited, that the 
coroner had distinctly assured Mr. Brooks that the suspicion was 
unfounded." [L. p. 189.] 

If it so seems, from Mr. Loring's memorandum of Decem- 
ber 19, 1846, all I have to say about it is, that it seems, from 
the memorandum made by my friend Mr. Adams, April 13, 
1848, that the coroner theii distinctly assured me exactly the 
other way ; and I refer, in proof, to Mr. Adams's memorandum, 
in a subsequent part of these remarks. 

Mr. Lowell then goes on to state what the fact was. 

" The fact w^as this : the coroner told me that it Avould be neces- 
sary to have a medical man in attendance, and asked me to procure 
one. Dr. Jackson expressed a reluctance to attend, and I called 
upon my family physician. Dr. Putnam. Neither he, nor I, had 
the slightest expectation that he would be put upon the jury, nor did 
either of us make any suggestion to that effect." [L. p. 189.] 

Now I shall not be so discourteous to Mr. Lowell as to 
suggest, that his statement, on this point, is overborne by Mr. 
Pratt's. But Mr. Pratt, it now appears, has, on two several 



91 

occasions, stated to me, and upon the last of them in the 
presence of a disinterested auditor, whose certificate I shall 
give, that Mr. Lowell did make the very suggestion, which he 
says he did not. And since Mr. Lowell chooses, in repeated 
instances, to rely on Mr. Pratt, as a good witness against me, 
I think it is but fair that I should " give him the benefit " of 
what his own witness says about him. It is certainly unfor- 
tunate, for Mi. Lowell, that he and his witness cannot agree 
better than this ; but I leave the contradiction to go for 
Avhat it mxay be worth. 

Mr. Lowell then adds the following remark : — 

" I think the impartial reader will hardly fail to ask, what there is 
in Dr. Charles G. Putnam's character or position, that authorizes Mr. 
Edward Brooks to hazard the innuendo, that, in the capacity of a juror, 
he would not appreciate the solemnity of the obligation upon him, or 
could be swerved from the strict and conscientious performance of his 
duty." [L. pp. 189, 190.] 

I should have been glad if Mr. Lowell had been pleased to 
point out the particular passage, which he supposes to contain 
this harsh innuendo. I am not conscious of it. Assui'edly, 
I never intended to intimate any such thing. I never enter- 
tained the idea. If any thing, in my pamphlet, is fairly 
entitled to that construction, I most sincerely ask Dr. Put- 
nam's pardon for it, and am happy in the opportunity of de- 
claring, that I have the most entire confidence in his charac- 
ter as a physician and a gentleman. I am the more solicitous 
to make this declaration, because I perceive from a letter of 
Dr. Putnam, printed by Mr. Lowell, [L. p. 14.] that he 
thinks it necessary to disclaim having made a proposal '' to 
embody in the verdict the fact that Mr. Boott Avas sane ;" 
which three of the jury said was proposed by some one, and 
that they did not recollect by whom, while two of them did 
not recollect the proposal at all ; — and " therefore," says Dr. 
Putnam, "by the process of exclusion, the imputation rests on 
me." Mr. Lowell represents this as '' a matter personal " to 
Dr. Putnam, [L. p. 14.] and Dr. Putnam, himself, apparently 
considers it an '' imputation." 

What I said, on that subject, will be found at p. 157-8 of 
my former pamphlet. I was commenting upon the evidence, 



92 

and was, of course, obliged to take it as I found it. I ex- 
tracted the statements of the five jurymen relating to this 
point, and showed from them, that this proposal could not, 
probably, have come from either of those five persons, nor 
from the coroner ; and I then added as follows : — 

" There was nobody else, by whom it coidd have been proposed, 
except Mr. Lowell, or his brother, Dr. Putnam, the sixth juryman. 
There was one other person present, a son of the late Mr. Kirk 
Boott, but I understand he took no part in the proceedings. 

" In this connexion, the further statement of Mr. Andrews de- 
serves to be borne in mind. 

" ' There v/as a question suggested by Mr. Lowell to three of the 
witnesses.' " [B. p. 158.] 

In a fair commentary on what the witnesses had said, 
knowing nothing of the fact myself, I could not assume to 
exclude, positively, either Dr. Putnam or Mr. Kirk Boott, any 
more than Mr. Lowell. Of Mr. Kirk Boott I could say, with 
truth, as I did, that I miderstood " he took no part in the 
proceedings." Of Dr. Putnam I could not say that ; and I 
did not conceive that the character of either of the gentlemen 
had any thing to do with the question. It would have been 
a mere mistake. But, I submit to the reader, upon the extract 
above made, and still more upon the context, which preceded 
and followed it, that the imputation, such as it was, and 
whether well or ill founded, of leading the jury to a conclusion, 
and of desiring to have that conclusion appear, affirmatively, 
in their verdict, was directed, throughout, against Mr. Lowell ; 
and that Dr. Putnam has mistaken me, if he infers, that, by 
any process of exclusion or otherwise, any imputation was 
meant to rest upon him. Mr. Lowell, himself, understood it 
precisely as I intended he should ; for he says, elsewhere, 
" Another instance of a like kind is the attempt to fix upon 
Qne a proposal that the coroner's jury should bring in a verdict 
that Mr. Boott was a sane man." [L. p. 19.] 

I am aware, that Mr. Lowell proceeds to make certain state- 
ments, which, if admitted, would tend to narrow the field of 
exclusion, so far as to make my remarks, on this proposal, 
properly applicable to Dr. Putnam, rather than to himself. But 
that is his doing, not mine ; and I am not prepared to admit 



93 

the unqualified correctness of what he says on that siibject, 
which is as follows : — 

" Upon this proposal, very rightly characterized by Mr. Brooks as 
an extraordinary one, there are some severe comments. But tlie 
learned counsel of Mr. Brooks might have informed him, that no one 
is permitted to be present at the dehberations of a jury. The propos- 
al, if made, came from one of themselves. Was Mr. Brooks igno- 
rant of this ? or, knowing it, was he willing to hazard the innuendo, 
trusting to the ignorance of his readers ?" [L. p. 19.] 

This alleged exclusiveness of a jury, at their deliberations, 
is perfectly true, as every body knows, of a jury, which has 
tried a cause in com't, and is sent out to find a verdict. The 
rule of the court forbids them to communicate with others 
in such cases ; and the court is capable of enforcing its own 
rule. But Avho believes this to be true in cases of inquest, 
when the jury have no guidance but that of a coroner and 
a constable, and no court to set aside their verdict ? Perhaps, 
in strict propriety, a coroner's JLiry ought to hold itself bound 
by the same principle, and to allow no stranger to be present, 
except as a witness, and while testifying. But there is no 
such nicety, I imagine, in the usual practice of such bodies, 
especially in cases where there is no suspicion of murder. 
I do not speak, of course, from any personal experience ; for 
I never attended a coroner's jury in my life. Mr. Lowell's 
friendly offices saved me that necessity, on the only occasion 
when I might, otherwise, have been called to that disagree- 
able duty. But such is my belief. I wrote under that idea. 
If I am shown to be mistaken in it, I shall most readily re- 
tract all I have said, on the subject of this proposal, as likely 
to have come from Mr. Lowell. 

But, it appears, that, in this very case, conversation was held 
with the jurors relative to the subject of their inquiry ; and 
that Mr. Lowell expressed some of his ideas in that conver- 
sation. True, Mr. Pratt says this was " after the inquest ;" by 
which he means, I suppose, after the verdict of " death by sui- 
cide " was made up ; but whether it was so, or not, is more 
than I know ; and if it was, the verdict was still, I presume, 
under the control of the jury, and amendable by an addition, 
on the distinct point of insanity. However this may be, I 



94 

desire to have it understood, that I never said, nor intended to 
intimate, that I thought Dr. Putnam to be the author of this 
proposal, nor that there was any thing derogatory to his char- 
acter in it, if he he A been ; nor that there was any impropri- 
ety in his acting on the jmy, at the request of iSli. LoweU. 
Still less have I ever suggested, or thought, " that, in the 
capacity of a jm'or, he would not appreciate the solemnity of 
the obligation upon him," [L. p. 189] or that he could, know- 
ingly, " be swerved from the strict and conscientious perform- 
ance of his duty." [L. p. 190.] 

Like other men, I suppose him liable to be influenced, in 
his judgement, by previous impressions, and by the opinions 
of friends, whose opinions he is accustomed to respect. But 
even that I do not attribute to him, in relation to this verdict. 
There was nothing, certainly, in the evidence laid before that 
jury, except the bare fact of a suicide, which could have jus- 
tified a verdict of insanity ; and I have no reason to suspect, 
that Dr. Putnam knew facts, known to Mr. Lov/ell, which, if 
proved, might well have induced him to pause for further 
inquiry, before he consented to omit the finding of the fact of 
insanity. This idea of an intended attack on Dr. Putnam 
may be safely dismissed, as another of Mr. Lowell's false 
issues. 



CHAPTER XII. 



THE JURORS. 



Mr. Lowell, after inferring, from my inquiries of another 
person for a different pm-pose, that I must have gradually in- 
fused into the minds of five jui'ors, "by repeated inquiries and 
insinuations," [L. p. 6.] what I desired them, as witnesses, to 
say, concludes, that ''the result of the examination was such 



95 

as might have been expected ;" and is obliged to admit, that 
they ''all agree, that my [Mr. Lowell's] testimony tended, 
more or less clearly, to the conclusion, that the death of Mr. 
Boott was attributable to uneasiness of mind, caused by the 
unhappy difficulties in the family, especially in relation to the 
estate." [L. p. 6.] 

" Even to this conclusion," he adds, " Mr. Brooks's wit- 
nesses would hardly have come, if the examination had been 
conducted with a decent regard to fairness ! ^^ [L. p. 6.] 

This is very plain speaking. It is as much a reflection 
upon the magistrate, who took that testimony, as it is upon 
me ; and I may very well ask, after the manner, and nearly 
in the language, of Mr. Lowell, "what there is in Mr. John 
P. Putnam's character or position, that auth(3rizes Mr. John A. 
Loioell to hazard the innuendo, that, in the capacity of a 
7nagistrate, he would not appreciate the solemnity of the obli- 
gation upon him, or would be swerved from the strict and 
conscientious performance of his duty ? " [L. p. 189.] 

He was, at that time, an entire stranger to me. I never 
spoke to him in my life, nor knew him even by sight, until 
I called upon him to fix a time for the hearing, after he had 
been spoken to, by my counsel, to engage his services as a 
magistrate. But he was recommended, by one of my coun- 
sel, as a gentleman of known respectability in his profession, 
accustomed to the taking of depositions with exact fidelity, 
and usually employed by him, for that duty, in important 
cases. He was, in fact, employed by him, and not by me, 
in this case. 

It will be borne in mind, besides, that it was not expected 
to be an ex parte proceeding at all. Three days' notice had 
been given to Mi\ Lowell, with the choice of appearing with 
or without counsel, as he pleased. [B. p. 24.] After waiting 
a reasonable time, no one appearing in his behalf, the ex- 
amination proceeded without him. Mi. Putnam was scrupu- 
lous, in the outset, to inform the witnesses, that he had no 
power to compel them to testify, and that no oath could be 
administered. In other respects, the business was conducted 
in what I miderstand to be the usual manner of taking depo- 



96 

sitions. The witnesses were successively examined, and their 
respective statements written down as delivered. Each was 
asked, in the first place, whether he had been on that jury of 
inquest, and whether Mr. Lowell was a witness before it ; and 
was then requested, to state what he recollected of Mr. Low- 
ell's testimony on that occasion. When he had told his gen- 
eral story j and came to a pause, particular questions were put, 
by me, on such further points as I wished to be informed 
upon, and supposed the witness might know. The magis- 
trate proceeded slowly and carefully, taking much pains to 
secure the exact language of the witness, reading each 
sentence over to him as he proceeded, and allowing him to 
correct it if it were not precisely as he meant to have it ; 
and such corrections were in fact made, in several instances. 
Finally, after assuring himself that the witness intended the 
whole declaration, precisely as it was made, it was submitted 
to the witness, for his own examination, and subscribed by 
him. 

Now what says Mr. Lowell ? " We are led to infer, that 
they were all examined together. If so, each had the benefit 
of having his memory refreshed by the evidence, and by the 
running commentaries of his associates." [L. p. 6.] 

This is one of the cases, in which Mr. Lowell runs into an 
inference without any premises. It is true, that the wit- 
nesses were not kept in separate apartments. This is some- 
times done in a capital trial ; but is not done in ordinary 
cases of examination, in court or out of court. But the wit- 
nesses were successively examined ; the statement of one was 
completed before that of another was begun ; there was 
no interruption, prompting, or running commentary from any 
quarter ; and, as it happened, they did not all hear each other's 
testimony ; for one witness, whose recollections are perhaps 
fuller, and more distinct, than either of the others, did not 
come in till the examination of several, if not of all, the 
others, was concluded. The order, by the way, in which 
the declarations are printed in my pamphlet, is the order, in 
which the papers happened to be tied together by the magis- 
trate, and is not the order, in which the examinations oc- 



97 

cured, as, it would seem, Mr. Lowell, also, erroneously 
infers. 

" At any rate," says Mr. Lowell, '^ the questions put to 
them were of so leading a character, that in an open court, 
where the rights of the adverse party were duly guarded, no 
lawyer, having any regard for his professional reputation, 
would have ventm'ed to put them : " and he thinks, that the 
learned counsel, who advised me in this business, must have 
taken especial care, that the fact of their absence should be 
recorded in my pamphlet. [L. p. 7.] 

I am not aware that these gentlemen were desirous of that 
protection, though it is not unlikely that my questions were 
very inartiiicially put ; for I profess no skill, or experience, in 
that matter. I should greatly have preferred, that my counsel 
should have been present to conduct the examination. In 
that case, I think it probable, that the testimony might have 
been put in much better shape, and perhaps more information 
might have been obtained from the witnesses. But I con- 
sidered myself, impliedly, engaged to Mr. Lowell, by the tenor 
of my notice to him, not to avail myself of counsel, if he did 
not. [B. p. 24.] Had I done so, we should, undoubtedly, 
have been told, that that was a very unfair proceeding ; and 
that the adroitness of these gentlemen of the law had con- 
trived to extort from the witnesses what they had never in- 
tended to say. 

As it was, I conducted the examination, so far as it de- 
pended on me, as well as I knew how ; and, I am sure, with- 
out any art of wilfully leading a witness astray, even if I 
might be deemed capable of that baseness. Does not Mr. 
Lowell himself furnish an apt illustration of this ? He says, 
" We are not favoured with the questions as put ; but three 
of the witnesses say, ' He [Mr. Lowell] did not say that the 
letter charged Mr. Brooks with dishonesty, or Mrs. Lyman 
Avith being a spy in the house,' — no one of the others, be it 
observed, having said that I did. I submit to every lawyer, 
under whose eye these pages may come, whether the words 
' spy ' and ' dishonesty ' were not put into the witnesses' 
mouths." [L. p. 7.] 



98 

Now I confess, that, having heard, from Mr. Lowell, that 
such was a part of the contents of that letter, and desiring to 
know, whether he had disclosed this to the jury, I very bluntly 
asked those witnesses, who spoke of the letter, whether Mr. 
Lowell did not say that it contained the words above quoted. 
This was very unprofessional, no doubt ; and if it was a 
leading question, as I suppose it was, I leave it to all the law- 
yers of the Suffolk Bar to say, whether the effect was not to 
lead the witnesses exactly the lorong way. Instead of tes- 
tifying that Mr. Lov/ell did say so, every one of them said, 
point blank, that he did not. I leave it, therefore, again, to 
the lawyers, to say, whether I should have put such a ques- 
tion, if I had talked the witnesses over beforehand, and taught 
them how to answer me, as Mr. Lowell supposes. 

But Mr. Lowell points out '^ one irrefragable proof," that 
the words, ascribed to him by some of the witnesses, must 
have been prompted by Mr. Brooks. It is this : — that I sup- 
posed the final bargain for the sale of the house to have been 
made by Mr. Lowell, — which he shows from a passage in my 
pamphlet, — whereas, Mr. Lowell says, that the bargain was, 
in fact, made by Mr. Boott himself ; and he further states, 
that he, Mr. Lowell, never personally requested the heirs to 
execute the deed, — which latter fact he shows also to have 
been stated in my pamphlet. He then quotes the declar- 
ation of Mr. Andrews, one of the jurors, who said, that Mr. 
Lowell testified, " that he, John A. Lowell, had concluded a 
sale of the estate in Bowdoin Square ; that upon an investi- 
gation of the title, a doubt existed, as to whether Boott, 
as executor, could convey that estate, and that it was neces- 
sary that the heirs should join in the conveyance ; that he, 
Mr. Lowell, called upon the heirs to obtain their signatures," 
&c. Now, argues Mr. Lowell, since I did not make the sale of 
the house, and since Mr. Brooks supposed that I did, it is 
plain, that Mr. Brooks must have put this into the mouth of 
the witness. [L. p. 8.] 

In answer I might retort the argimient. Since it appears, 
by Mr. Lowell's own showing, that I did 7iot suppose Mr. 
Lowell himself had ever called upon the heirs to obtain their 



99 

signatures to the deed, and since Mr. Andrews says, that Mr. 
Lowell stated that he did^ his own process of reasoning proves, 
that this witness could not have got his ideas from me, and did 
not testify from my prompting. 

But how does it happen that the witness and I should, 
both, have got the same idea of Mr. Lowell's having made 
that bargain ? I answer, we both got it from the same ex- 
cellent authority, — Mr. Lowell himself. Although the actual, 
final bargain may have been, as Mr. Lowell now says, con- 
cluded by Mr. Boott, and Mr. Darracott may have dealt di- 
rectly with Mr. Boott in making it, Mr. Lowell will hardly 
deny that he had a general agency in that business ; — that he 
had himself made one previous bargain which fell through ; — 
that the note, given for the purchase-money, on the final 
bargain, came to his hands ; — that he was Mr. Boott's negoti- 
ator about the settlement with the heirs ; — and that he always 
spoke and acted as if he were the general head and conduct- 
or of the whole affair. Indeed, the letters of Mr. Darra- 
cott, printed by Mr. Lowell, [L. pp. 153, 154.] show, that 
pending the negotiation, Mr. Darracott always communicated 
to Mr. Lowell Avhat had passed between him and Mr. Boott 
on the one hand, and between him and me on the other. It 
was very natm'al, therefore, for Mr. Lowell, even if Mr. Boott 
did, in truth, make the original bargain, to speak of it in such 
terms, that a hearer might infer that Mr. Lowell had made it, 
when that particular fact was not a point directly in question, 
but an immaterial cii'cumstance. My impression was, cer- 
tainly, derived from nobody but Mr. Lowell ,• and I see no 
reason to doubt that Mr. Andrews derived his from the same 
gentleman, in the course of the conversation, after the inquest, 
when Mr. Lowell, probably, used many loose and strong ex- 
pressions, which he might not have used in the giving of 
careful testimony. 

It was then, probably, that he spoke to Dr. Palmer of the 
^'■triumphant vindication" of Mr. Boott by the accomits, and 
used to Mr. Learnard '' so remarkable an expression " [L. p. 9.] 
as that '^ Mr. Brooks was a violent man ; " and, considering 
the business of the inquest concluded, he may have forgotten, 



100 

in other unguarded phrases, the great caution and reserve, 
with which he probably intended to testify, and thinks 
he testified, and perhaps did, while he was speaking under 
oath, although the jurors, not having their attention called 
to distinguish between testimony and conversation, speak of 
it all as if it were said on the witnesses' stand. So that, 
after all, Mr. Lowell's " irrefragable proof" comes only to his 
own present assertion, that he did not make a certain bar- 
gain, which he had, always before, caused others to under- 
stand that he did make. The supposed proof is founded, 
entirely, on his own perfect conviction, that he never makes 
a mistake, nor says one word more or less than strict accuracy 
requires. 

One other comment on the evidence deserves notice for 
its curiosity. Mr. Lowell says, '' I appeal to every man 
conversant with human testimony, to consider what is the 
value of evidence so procured, after the lapse of nearly 
tv/o years, when the most upright and conscientious men are 
so liable to confound what was said hy one witness on the 
stand with what may have been said hy another, or with im- 
pressions received aliunde at the time, or afterwards gradu- 
ally made by repeated inquiries and insinuations." [L. p. 6.] 

The reader has already seen upon what the hypothesis of 
the " repeated inquiries and insinuations " is founded ; but he 
must be at great loss to understand the foundation of the other 
suggestions in this sentence, when he remembers, that the 
only witnesses examined at the inquest, besides Mr. Lowell, 
were Mrs. Lyman and the two women servants in the house ;* 
and that their evidence, as Dr. Putnam states, '^ related chiefly 
to the individual peculiarities of the deceased." [L. p. 14.] 
If Dr. Putnam had added to this '' their observation of the 
movements of the deceased on the preceding night, and their 
discovery of his death, that morning, with its attendant cir- 
cumstances," he would have stated the whole of theii* evi- 
dence. 

Which, then, of these females, does Mr. Lowell mean to 
suggest, might, possibly, have been confounded with him, in 
the minds of the jurors ? Is it not an affront to the reader's 



101 

understanding, to throw out the idea, that any one of the 
things, which I consider a subject of complaint, and which 
the jurors attribute to Mr. Lowell, might have been said by 
some other loitness, when there was 7io other Avitness there, 
who could, possibly, have said any thing about the state of 
the accounts, the sale of the house, and the other business 
transactions, which were the subjects of his testimony and 
conversation ? 

As to "impressions received aliunde at the time," who was 
there, '^ at the time, " but himself to convey them? Does he 
mean to suggest, that they might have come from Dr. Put- 
nam, or Mr. Kirk Boott ? If so, he might easily have proved 
the fact. Not an individual else was present with the jurors, 
the coroner and the constable, — all strangers to the deceased 
and his concerns, — except Mr. Lowell and the female wit- 
nesses ; and the latter were present only while testifying. 

Li respect to impressions supposed to have been " aftei^- 
wards, gradually, made, by repeated inquiries and insinua- 
tions," I can only say, that I never even asked a question 
of any one of the jurors until just before, or at, the examina- 
tion. I appeal to them for the fact ; — a.nd for the purpose of 
dissipating all these groundless suggestions, I now propose 
to Mr. Lowell to have those gentlemen, once more, called 
together. Let us meet, face to face, in the presence of all of 
them, and hear what they will say upon this matter, or upon 
any other matter connected with that inquest, and with their 
declarations, which Mr. Lowell may venture to make the 
subject of interrogation. I should be extremely glad, with 
the additional knowledge I now have of the truth of this 
case, to have their testimony taken over again in the presence 
of Mr. Loioell. I propose this. If it be not agreed to, let 
us hear no more of these charges and insinuations, against 
me, and the jurors, and the magistrate, of colluding, to create 
unfair or exaggerated testimony. 

To conclude this matter of the alleged unfairness of the 
examination, and worthlessness of the evidence, I will now 
present a letter, on that subject, from the gentleman, who took 
the declarations, and then leave it to Mr. Lowell to settle the 



102 

question with the jurors, severally or collectively, whether 
they were, as he suggests, mere instruments of my tuning, 
or whether they had not some notes of their own to utter. 

LETTER FROM Mk. JOHN PHELPS PUTNAM. 

"16 Court Street, April 26, 1848. 
"Dear Sir : 

" Your note of the 25th inst. has been received, in which you call 
my attention to certain statements in a pamphlet lately published by 
Mr. John A. Lowell, in reference to the examination of certain wit- 
nesses bef3re me, and wherein you ask me to state my recollection of 
the manner, in which that examination was conducted, and also who 
first called upon me in reference to taking the testimony. 

In reply, I would say, that I was first applied to, in reference to 
this matter, by Mr. Sidney Bartlett, and that I had no personal ac- 
quaintance with you until the day of the examination. When the 
witnesses came before me, I stated to them that the examination was 
not an official one, and that I was only to take down their declara- 
tions, as they saw fit to make them, and I believe that you, also, said 
to them something to the same purport. 

" I cannot now state very particularly, as to the manner, in which 
the questions were put by you, or how far any of them might have 
been open to the legal objection of being leading in their character. 
It was, of course, necessary for you to direct the attention of the 
witnesses to the points, upon which you wished their testimony ; but I 
have no recollection of any thing, in your manner of examination, 
like ' putting words into their mouths,' or of any thing, in any part of 
the proceeding, which could be characterized as ' unfair,' in the least 
degree. 

" Very respectfull}^, yours, &c. 

"J. P. PUTNAM. 

"Edward Brooks, Esq." 



103 



CHAPTER XIII. 



After this assault, by insinuation, on five respectable wit- 
nesses, as persons, whose evidence was so got up that it ought 
not to be believed, Mr. Lowell says, '^ I shall now proceed to 
present the testimony of the remaining four persons, who 
were present at the inquest, but not at the examination, viz. 
the coroner. Dr. Putnam, Mr. Kirk Boott, and myself ".' 
[L. p. 10.] This he thinks of a superior quality ; yet it 
consists of statements entirely ex parte^ and open to more 
than every objection taken, by Mr. Lowell, to the testimony 
produced by me. 

The coronefs statement, by the way, is nothing new. It 
is the very same, which I had already printed, in a letter from 
Mr. Loring to Mr. Dexter, dated March 12, 1845. As Mr. 
Lowell correctly says, it appears in the Appendix to my 
pamphlet. But he also says, that it was " not presented with 
the other testimony in the text, and is put entirely out of 
view in his [Mr. Brooks's] commentary upon that testimony." 
[L. p. 10.] 

This is another of Mr. Lowell's unfortunate mistakes ; 
for, besides printing it in an appendix, I quoted the coroner's 
statement, verbatim, and at full length, in the body of my 
text, [B. p. 152.] and compared with it the statements of the 
several jurors, on the subject of the letter of the deceased, 
produced at the inquest, — which subject had led to the coro- 
ner's statement. [B. p. 154.] I referred to it again, with 
particularity, as evidence on another point, in my concluding 
remarks. [B. p. 163.] 

The essential difference, in our respective modes of pre- 
senting the coroner's statement, is this : — I printed it in full, 
without the suppression of a single word ', whereas Mr. Lowell 



104 

prints it under this heading, — '' The Coroner's Statement/*' — 
as if it were the whole, and yet omits an entire sentence — 
a sentence of some consequence, too, since it discloses the 
fact, that Mr. Franklin Dexter, whose general accuracy Mr. 
Lowell admits, [L. p. 168.] declared, that he (the coroner) 
had stated a part of the same matter differently at another 
time, — which is quite material to the credibility of the state- 
ment. The omitted sentence is in these words : — " That Mr. 
Dexter was mistaken, in saying that he (Mr. P.) said that he 
saw, or heard, the greater part of the letter — that it was a 
very long letter and very little was read to him." I ask the 
reader to compare the two statements, as printed in my 
pamphlet, [pp. 152, 153.] and in Mr. Lowell's, [p. 12.] and he 
will see this difference. I also refer him to Mr. Dexter 's 
letter of March 13, 1845, written after receiving notice of 
this denial by Mr. Pratt, in which Mr. Dexter says, " I now 
state, in brief, that I am quite sure I reported Mr. Pratt 
correctly in substance," &c. [B. pp. 153, 154.] 

Mr. Lowell, not only prints the statement with this sup- 
pression, but remarks upon it, that " It was rendered within a 
few days after the inquest, when all the facts Avere fresh 
in his mind, and was not elicited hy any intimation of what 
Mr. Dexter had reported him to have said, or of any points 
between the parties, as Mr. Loring expressly states in his 
letter communicating it to Mr. Dexter." [L. p. 10.] 

Now it is true, that Mr. Loring 's letter does contain a 
remark to that effect ; but, if Mr. Pratt had not, in some 
way, been informed of the object of the interview, how hap- 
pened he to say, '' Mr. Dexter is mistaken in saying," &c. ? 

It may be that the conversation was begun, by ]Mr. Loring, 
without stating to Mr. Pratt the object of the inquiries ; but 
it is very plain, from Mr. Pratt's remark, that this caution 
was forgotten, by somebody, long before the conversation 
ended. Yet Mr. Lowell, not content with referring to this 
expression in Mr. Loring's letter, declares anew, on his own 
authority, that the coroner's statement, (by which must be 
understood the whole of it,) " was not elicited by any inti- 
mation of what Mr. Dexter had reported him to have said ;" 



105 

and he suppresses a sentence, from the midst of that state- 
ment, which proves that the coroner then^ at least, knew the 
fact that Mr. Dexter had so reported him. If the language 
of Mr. Lowell can be literally true, still, when coupled with 
the omission of a part of Mr. Pratt's statement, it serves to 
mislead the reader, on a point, which affects, materially, the 
credibility of that statement ; and this omission, by Mr. 
Lowell, is not much amended by his quoting the omitted 
sentence in another part of his pamphlet, after an interval 
of nearly one hundred and sixty pages, when he had occa- 
sion to use it for a particular argument. [L. p. 168.] 

Mr. Lowell, however, after pointing out the grounds, on 
Avhich he claims a superiority of credit for the coroner's 
statement, concludes, that "evidence so given [that is, pri- 
vately to Mr. Lowell and his counsel, in the presence only 
of a young student] will, in the judgement of persons 
competent to judge, outweigh a volume of such as Mr. Brooks 
has procured, under the circumstances above enumerated." 
[L. p. 10.] For myself, I must be permitted to doubt, whether 
any reader, who reads both sides, will be found of sufficient 
competency to form such a judgement. 

Dr. Putnam and Mr. Kirk Boott are next commended, as 
witnesses of peculiar value, — not because their statements 
were made, like the coroner's, nearer to the time of the in- 
quest, and while theii' recollections must have been fresher 
than those of the five jurors, — on the contrary, they were, in 
fact, a little later ; but a reason is assigned, for giving them 
unusual weight, which strikes me as curious. It is, that they 
" were both conversant with my [Mr. Lowell's] situation in 
relation to the deceased and his family, and were, therefore, 
more competent than strangers to appreciate my conduct at 
the inquest." [L. p. 10.] They '' would take the deepest 
interest in the evidence presented at the inquest, and there- 
fore pay the strictest attention to it." [L. p. 15.] That is, 
they knew something of the matter beforehand, and were 
prepared, with preconceived opinions and prejudices, to hear 
what their friend Mr. Lowell had to say, and are, on that 
account, better witnesses than merely impartial persons, on 

14 



106 

the general question, whether Mr. Lowell testified in a man- 
ner, of which I have a right to complain. Is not this some- 
thing new mider the smi ? The principle seems to be, that 
the more bias a witness has, the more credit he should carry ! 

Now it is needless for me to say of these two gentlemen, 
that, on the score of upright intention, no persons in this 
community are, in my belief, entitled to more credit than 
they. On the other hand, it is not suggested, in the '' Re- 
ply," that the witnesses, whom I examined, are not, also, en- 
titled to be respected as men of truth ; and they, certainly, 
were free from any imaginable temptation to tell an inten- 
tional falsehood. But the question is, which kind of witness 
is likely to be most accurate in his recollection of the general 
effect of what Mr. Lowell said, in its hearing upon Qny 
reputation^ as well as of the particular facts^ that were stat- 
ed, — he, to whom the facts, so impressive in their character, 
were all neiv^ and therefore more striking, and who had no 
previous idea of the relations of parties, and of the merits of 
the controversies, — or he, who knew the relations well, and 
who was remotely concerned in these pending controversies, 
or connected with those, who were, and who had a set of 
ideas, applicable to the case, already derived from Mr. Lowell, 
or from other sources ? Such a question cannot admit of two 
answers, — especially when the very point in dispute is, 
whether Mr. Lowell testified fairly towards me, upon a 
state of facts, the truth of which he asserts, and / deny. 

Mr. Lowell, himself, illustrates the comparison, when he 
shows how strongly these witnesses must have been imbued 
with his notions on the merits of the previous controversy 
in the family, respecting Mr. J. Wright Boott's conduct and 
accounts, and his fitness to be a trustee ; for Dr. Putnam, it 
seems, on the evening of the inquest, expressed to a friend, '' in 
strong terms, his sense of the extreme caution and forbear- 
ance,''^ which Mr. Lowell had shown in his testimony ; [L. p. 
10.] while Mr. Kirk Boott, on the same evening, told his 
mother, that Mr. Lowell " had testified with a reserve and 
tenderness towards the absent, and a self-possession,^'' which, 
his " known attachment " to the deceased, " and the excite- 



107 

ment attending so horrible a catastrophe rendered quite re- 
marhahleP [L. p. 10.] 

Had I sought, I could hardly have found, terms better 
suited to show how completely these gentlemen sijmpathized 
in Mr. Lowell's views and feelings, believing, as they doubt- 
less did, every word, uttered by him, to convey an oracular 
truth. Yet, whether he wn,^ forbearing and tender towards the 
absent, or the reverse, depends, obviously, on the truth and 
justice of his and their views of the previous facts, — which 
facts are the very matter noAV in issue. By what other 
standard, than either theii* own prior conception of the facts 
of the case, or Mr. Lowell's statement of them at the time, 
could they, possibly, have determined, in their own minds, 
whether he was tender and forbearing^ or not, towards ab- 
sent persons, whose conduct was alluded to ? The idea, clearly, 
involves judgement on the merits of that conduct ; and shows 
that, in the opinion of those gentlemen, the individuals, so 
pointed at, well deserved marked reprobation. It is obvious, 
that, in theii' minds, I was already condemned, without a 
hearing. Does the reader then see cause, on this ground, to 
place the testimony of these two witnesses, who, on Mr. 
Lowell's own showing, were thus prejudiced in the case, so 
infinitely above that of five, who had no prejudice ? And 
here, again, since Mr. Lowell says so much about fairness 
of proceeding, I ask, why he did not give me fair notice of 
his intention to take testimony on this subject ? AYhy, if his 
object was '• to elicit the truth," did he not give me oppor- 
tunity, as I, on a like occasion, had given to him, to be 
present at an examination of these witnesses, to hear Avhat 
they had to say, and to put questions, if I pleased, instead of 
causing them to prepare ex parte statements, of which the 
first notice to me is their appearance in print ? 

Besides, when these gentlemen speak of the tenderness 
and forbearance of Mr. Lowell towards the absent, let it be 
noted, that they confine their remarks, expressly, to the testi- 
mony, which he gave under oath. They do not refer 
to what he said in conversation, after the inquest. Mr. K. 
Boott, indeed, told me, that, although he saw Ish. Lowell con- 



108 

versing with the jm-ors, he did not distinctly hear what was 
said to them. 

This fact, — the subsequent conversation, — explains, to my 
miad, much, that was otherwise difficult to account for. 
What things were said by Mr. Lowell, in the hearing of the 
jurors, cannot be doubted, upon the concurrent testimony of 
so many intelligent and unbiased witnesses. That some of 
those things should have been deliberately stated by him in 
the solemn form of sworn testimony, was difficult to believe. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



MONY AT THE INQUEST. 

I presume every reader is, now, fully prepared, from the 
course of Mr. Lowell's remarks and insinuations, to find 
some direct, positive, and startling opposition, between his 
witnesses and mine. But how is the fact ? Will it be be- 
lieved, that, after all this parade of cii'cumstances, supposed 
to detract from the credit of one set of witnesses, and to 
enhance that of the other, it turns out, that no one, of the 
three witnesses, relied upon by Mr. Lowell, has ventured to 
gainsay a single word, which had been testified by either of 
the five, whom I caused to be examined? Yet, every reader, 
who will take the pains to compare, carefully, their several 
statements, will see this, and that there is, really, no essential 
discrepance among them ; none, at least, which is not ade- 
quately accounted for by the conversation after the inquest, 
when all were not listening to the same remark at the same 
time, and by the different states of mind, in which the sev- 
eral witnesses estimated the effect of what Mr. Lowell said, in 
its bearing upon me. 



109 

There is no direct contradiction among them as to the 
facts^ which Mr. Lowell stated. They differ, only, in the 
manner of expressing them, or in the degree of particularity, 
with which they describe his testimony. Indeed, the state- 
ments of Mr. Lowell's witnesses, and his own statement, are 
extremely general. They, apparently, avoid going much 
into particulars. Let us briefly compare them with the more 
formal declarations of the jurors. 

In the fii'st place, the witnesses, examined on my part, con- 
cur in showing, that they derived, from the whole testimony, 
a general impression, that the death was attributed by Mr. 
Lowell to the effect, on a sensitive mind, of the difficulties 
about the settlement of Mr. Boott's accounts, and his alleged 
mismanagement of his father's estate, and the refusal of some 
of the heirs, on that ground, to execute a certain deed. Now 
it is remarkable, that Mr. Lowell's witnesses, brought up ex- 
pressly to counteract mine, do not deny, that they had the 
same impression, although their general descriptions of Mr. 
Lowell's testimony do not show, quite so clearly and strongly, 
that this impression was a necessary inference from the testi- 
mony alone. 

How is it, then, when we come to the particulars of what 
Ml'. Lowell said ? The five jurors declare, that Mr. Lowell 
spoke of dissensions in the family, and do not say that he 
expressed any direct opinion on their merits. [Ante p. 77.] 
Both Dr. Putnam and Mr. Kirk Boott state the same fact ; 
[L. p. 13.] and the only difference, in their manner of stat- 
ing it, is, that they declare, affirmatively, that Mr. Lowell 
did not express his opinion. The coroner says nothing about it. 

The five jurors declare, in substance, that Mr. Lowell spoke 
of an idea of mismanagement, entertained by some of the 
heirs, and stated, that Mr. Boott was summoned, in conse- 
quence, to settle his accounts, as executor ; that these ac- 
counts were disputed ; that he [Mr. Lowell] made them up 
himself, as some say, or examined them himself, as others 
say ; that it tm^ned out, that, instead of a deficiency, there 
was a balance due from the estate to Mr. Boott of $25,000 ; 
and that Mr. Boott's feelings were much hmt by the conduct 



110 

of these heirs. [Ante pp. 77-8.] No one of Mr. Lowell's wit- 
nesses denies either of these statements ; — on the contrary, 
each, so far as he goes, tends to confirm them. The coroner 
says, " Mr. Lowell stated, that Mr. Bootfs accounts had been 
disputed, but that they had heen passed, and he, [Mr. Low- 
ell] had supposed that his ?jiind tvas relieved on that point." 
[L. p. 12.] This is all the coroner says on the subject. 
Mr. Kirk Boott says, '' You told him, that m'l/ uncle^s accounts^ 
had been disputed, but that they had been settled some time 
since. You did not say by whom his accounts had been 
disputed, or that you considered this to have induced his 
death:' [L. p. 13.] This is all ]\Ir. Kirk Boott says on the 
subject. Dr. Putnam's recollection of Mr. Lowell's statements 
on the same point is, " that Mr. Boott had lately made up 
his accounts, as executor of the estate of his father ; that ob- 
jection had heen taken to said accounts hy some of the heirs, 
but that they had been finally passed ; that, pending the 
settlement, Mr. Boott had been much troubled in mind.'''' [L. 
p. 13.] Mr. Lowell's OAvn statement, drawn up, he says, at 
the time of our correspondence, [L. p. 11.] represents, that, 
in reply to the question, whether " he had known of Mr. 
Boott's being troubled in m,ind on any subject," he stated, 
'' that there had been family dissensions, of the merits of 
which I knew nothing ; that latterly Mr. Boott had been sum,- 
tnoned to settle his accounts, as executor of his father's will ; 
that he had presented an account at the probate office, show- 
ing a balance in his favour, which had been allowed.''^ These 
statements, therefore, of Mr. Lowell and his witnesses, taken 
together, affirm, positively, that he testified, that there was a 
dispute between Mr. Boott and some of the heirs, relative to the 
accounts of his executorship ; — that he was sum?noned to a 
settlement ; — that the account presented in the probate office 
showed a balance in his favour; — that it was disputed, and tvas, 
notwithstajiding, passed ; — and that, pending this settlement, 
he had been m^uch troubled in mind ; and while they make 
these affirmations, agreeing entirely, in substance, Avith those of 
the five jurors, they do not deny the further statements of 
those witnesses that he said the balance in Mr Boott's favom' 



Ill 

amounted to $25,000, and that he (Mr. Lowell) had made up, 
or examined the accounts himself, and that the idea of mis- 
management, as executor, was entertained by some of the 
heirs, — which, indeed, would seem to be involved in the fact 
of their disputing his accounts. So that the several state- 
ments, on this head, are perfectly consistent. 

Again, the five jiu'ors declare, that Mr. Lowell said, 
in substance, that, pending this question of the accounts, 
and notioithstandins the balance was found to be in Mr. 
Boott's favour, some of the heirs refused to execute a deed 
of the house. [Ante pp. 77-8.] Neither the coroner, nor 
Mr. K. Boott, nor Dr. Putnam, alludes to this at all ; but Mr. 
Lowell's own statement admits, that he said, Mr. Boott '' had 
been somewhat troubled in his mi7id by a refusal of some 
of the heirs to sign a deed of the house, but that this had 
finally been done ; " [L. p. 11.] and this stands in immediate 
connexion with the statement, that he had been summoned, 
(which was untrue,) to settle his accounts as executor, that 
the accounts were presented in the probate court, and showed 
a balance in his favour, and were allowed ; — the inference 
from which, (contrary to the fact,) is, that they were allowed 
by the judge of probate, notwithstanding the opposition of the 
heirs, loho had summoned him. 

On another point, which was in question, Mr. Lowell said, 
in our correspondence, " I did not mention your name, or 
that of any other person before the coroner's jury, in connex- 
ion with the unhappy dissensions in Mr. Boott's family." 
[B. p. 15.] The idea conveyed by this was, that he did not 
mention my name at all, in either close, or remote, connexion 
with that subject. 

Of the jurors, whom I examined, Mr. Andrews and Mr. 
Brown did not speak to this point. Dr. Palmer said, " My 
impression is, that he mentioned Mr. Edward Brooks's name 
as one of the heirs ; meaning, as appears by the context, one 
of the heirs, who called for accounts and refused to sign the 
deed. [B. p. 28.] Mr. Learnard said, ^' he particularly men- 
tioned the name of Mr. Edward Brooks as one of such heirs;" 
i. e., heirs, who objected to signing the deed. [B. p. 29.] 



112 

Mr. Dyke said. " he stated, in particular, the name of Mr. 
Edward Brooks, as among the heirs, who refused to sign the 
deed.'''' [B. p. 30.] Now what say the witnesses on the other 
side ? The coroner's statement is, " that, Mr. Lowell had 
never mentioned Mr. Brooks's name in his presence, except 
in reply to the question, who were the members of Mr. 
Boott's family." [L. p. 12.] Dr. Putnam, following Mr. 
Lowell's letter, says, you ^'expressed no opinion in regard to 
such dissension, nor did you mention the name of any person 
in connexion with it.'''' [L. p. 14.] Mr. Kirk Boott, on the 
other hand, states this in a form, which seems to explain 
the coroner's exception, and also to explain what Dr. Put- 
nam means, when he says Mr. Lowell did not mention the 
name of any person in connexion with the subject of the dis- 
sension ; for, Mr. K. Boott says, " you named to the coroner 
the different members of the family, but did not state ivho id ere 
the friends of my uncle and who were not.'''' [L. p. 13.] And 
finally, it is admitted, by Mr. Lowell's own statement, as he 
now presents it, [L. p. 11.] that, " in answer to a general in- 
quiry, who were the members of Mr. Boott's family, I [Mr. 
Lowell] enumerated them, beginning Avith the mother," &c. 
It is beyond controversy then, that he did mention my name 
as one of the heirs, in the course of the same testimony, 
which described the facts of family dissensions, disputed ac- 
counts, and a refusal to sign a certain deed, by which Mr. 
Boott had been much troubled in mind ; and the whole dif- 
ference among the witnesses comes to one of degree, as to 
the closeness or remoteness of the connexion between my 
name and the other topics. Indeed, the differences of the 
witnesses, throughout, are those merely of degree and colour- 
ing, from Mr. Learnard, who says Mr. Lowell declared, that 
'' Mr. Brooks was a violent man,''^ down to Dr. Putnam and 
Mr. Kirk Boott, who say, that the manner, in which he spoke 
of the absent, was truly tender mid forbeaj'ing f 

But the only fair question upon this point, — the use of my 
name, — is, whether or not my name was so used, that the 
jury must have understood, from all that was said, and, from 
the circumstances of the case, as made known to them, that 



113 

/ was one of the persons, who disputed the accounts, and re- 
fused to sign the deed, on the ground of an alleged misman- 
agement, which was disproved by the act of the judge of 
probate, in allowing the accounts with a balance in Mr. 
Boott's favour, notwithstanding the opposition of these per- 
sons. And who can doubt this, when several of the jurors 
declare that they so understood it, and no one of the wit- 
nesses, on either side, states that he understood otherwise? 
Mr. Lowell suggests, indeed, that the dissensions of the fam- 
ily, and my part in them, were already quite notorious, and 
did not need to be stated by him for the information of the 
jury. [L. p. 6.] So much the worse for Mr. Lowell, So 
much the more readily would the jury apply to me any re- 
marks he made on these subjects, and understand that they 
had his authority/ for the impressions they derived from the 
whole testimony. 

Another point in question was, what was said about the 
letter of the deceased, which Mr. Lowell produced, and 
whether any part of it was read. The coroner had said to 
Mr. Loring, soon after the inquest, that he " inquired of Mr. 
Lowell if the letter alluded to the suicide, and he said it did ;" 
— and ''that he [the coroner] did not know, till this mo- 
ment, [the time of his statement to Mr. Loring,] that Mr. 
Brooks's name was mentioned in the letter." [L. p. 12.] 
The inference from this would be, that no part of it was 
read, and that nothing else was said about it. Of the wit- 
nesses, whom I examined, Mr. Andrews did not speak of 
the letter. Mr. Dyke only mentioned its production, and no 
particular question was put to him respecting it. Dr. Palmer's 
statement was, that Mr. Lowell ''said it contained his (Mr. 
Boott's) will, and made him his executor, and requested him 
not to think the worse of him for the course he had taken." 
" My impression is, that he was asked if there was any thing 
more in the letter, which bore upon the case, and he replied 
there was nothing moreJ^ [B. p. 29.] Mr. Learnard de- 
clared, that "the coroner asked him [Mr. Lowell] if it con- 
tained any thing except of a business nature, and he said it 
did not:' [B. p. 29.] Mr. Brown said, "he [Mr. Lowell] 



114 

i^ead a part of the letter ^ which said, that he, Mr. Boott, 
hoped, that the method which he took to end his wretched- 
ness, would not lead Mr. Lowell to think the worse of him. 
I asked Mr. Lowell if there was any thing else in the letter, 
which hore upoji the case. He said he had read all, which 
related to it.^'' [B. p. 30.] To three of these witnesses I put 
the particular question, whether Mr. Lowell said any thing 
about its charging me with dishonesty, or about its charg- 
ing Mrs. Lyman with being a spy in the house, and they 
said he did not. 

Now what say the new witnesses ? Nothing, certainly, 
which mends the case for Mr. Lowell. Dr. Putnam's state- 
ment is, ''You produced a letter recently received from Mr. 
Boott, relating, as you said, chiefly to private affairs. The 
coroner declined hearing any thing of a private nature ; and, 
under his direction, you read such portions only as he consid- 
ered requisite, and suiRcient for the proper investigation of 
the case." [L. p. 14.] By this, it would seem, in confirm- 
ation of the statement of Mr. Brown, that some portions of 
the letter were read] and that other portions, which Mr. 
Lowell said related to pi^ivate affairs^ were not read. What 
the parts read related to. Dr. Putnam does not inform us. 
According to Mr. Brown, they spoke of the means taken by 
the deceased to e7id his loretchedness. But what did Mr. 
Lowell say respecting the parts, which were not read ? Ac- 
cording to some of the witnesses, he said, they did not hear on 
the case. According to Dr. Putnam, he said, they related to 
private affairs. But, according to Mr. K. Boott, he also gave 
some idea of the nature of those affairs; for Ae says, ''You 
[Mr. Lowell] told him [the coroner] you had received a let- 
ter, written by my uncle the day of his death ; that you 
would prefer not to show the letter, as it contained charges, 
which he loas not here to substajitiate. The coroner did not 
see the letter, [i. e. at the inquest] neither did you state to 
him any thing it contained relative to family troubles,''^ 
[L, p. 13.] 

According to this, although no particular of its contents, 
relative to family troubles, was stated or read, the jury were 



115 

informed, as a reason for not reading it, that '^ it contained 
charges, which he [the deceased] was not here to substan- 
tiate." Charges against whom ? It does not appear that 
Mr. Lowell mentioned my name in that iinmediate con- 
nexion ; but, from the whole testimony, taken together, 
was not enough disclosed to the jury, to authorize them to 
infer, that the charges were against those of the heirs, who 
had disputed the accounts and refused to execute the deed ? 
Who they were, Mr. Lowell says truly, was very notorious. 
What were the jury to think of this intimation of charges, 
which could not be disclosed, coupled with the extraordinary 
facts, which were stated, and the opinion of Mr. Lowell, that 
the deceased was not insane ? The withholding of the letter, 
though consented to by the coroner, was regarded by the 
jury as very strange. They were put to wonder and con- 
jecture about it. Mr. Brown, the foreman, says, " I have 
been frequently on inquests. It has been invariably the 
case, that all papers, calculated to throw light upon the case, 
especially those written soon before the death of the de- 
ceased, should be given up to the jury, I never knew before 
an exception. The fact of his not giving up the letter made 
an unfavourable impression on my mind." [B. p. 30. J Dr. 
Palmer says, that though Mr. Lowell stated there was noth- 
ing more in the letter, which bore on the case, " My im- 
pression was, that there was something more in the letter, 
from his not being willing to give it up." [B. p. 29.] And 
Mr. Andrews says, though speaking of the testimony of Mr. 
Lowell generally, and not of the letter in particular, ^' I re- 
marked to Mr. Dyke, and I suppose I made the remark gen- 
erally, that there was something behind the curtai?i, which 
we did not see ; and that we should probably hear more of 
this matter." [B. p. 28.] 

My present object, however, is not to discuss the propriety 
of Mr. Lowell's course at the inquest, or the truth of what 
the jury understood from him ; that will be done in due 
time ; I am now only looking at the neiv evidence, produced 
by Mr. Lowell, respecting his testimony, to see hcAV far it 
alters the case, formerly shown by me ; and upon this point. 



116 

of the contents of the letter, I only call the reader's atten- 
tion, now, to the fact, that the statements of his witnesses 
do not contradict any thing said on that subject by the wit- 
nesses, whom I examined ; but they add a new fact^ which 
seems to be material, namely, the fact, that Mr. Lowell said 
the letter contained charges against somebody; and that, 
since the writer was not there to substantiate the charges, it 
w^as a reason why the letter should not be read, or laid be- 
fore the jury. This mystery, made about the letter and its 
charges, helps, I think, to account for the strong impression 
produced upon the jury. It is also remarkable, that Mr. 
Lowell, in his own statement, prepared at the time of our 
correspondence, does not say one xoord about this letter ; al- 
though that statement purports to be a complete account of 
the substance of his testimony. [L. p. 11.] And if that 
was, in truth, the whole of it, and the whole of what he 
said in conversation, on the same occasion, why should he 
have been unwilling to disclose it to me at the time of our 
correspondence, — especially if he felt confident, as he now 
affects to be, that there was nothing objectionable in the ac- 
counts ? If there were nothing to conceal, why, when I 
asked him, did he not frankly tell me what his testimony 
had been, and thereby take away, at once, the principal 
excuse, which he says I was always seeking, for a publi- 
cation ? — especially when he took pains to assure me, that 
his motive for answering me at all, was "a hope that it 
might relieve the U7ipleasant feeling and m.isapprehe7ision 
under which you [Brooks] laboured." [Letter from Mr. 
Lowell, B. p. 16.] 

The five jurors speak of several other particulars of Mr. 
Lowell's testimony, which are not adverted to by his wit- 
nesses. These, of course, stand entirely uncontradicted, un- 
less by himself. Mr. LowelTs own contradiction is confined 
to a few expressions, which he thinks he could not have 
used, forgetting, as he evidently does, the loose conversation, 
which followed the testimony; as is proved by two of his 
own witnesses. But what is curious enough, considering 
that we deal with a man of such scrupulous accuracy, is, that 



117 

the particular expressions, which he selects for contradiction, 
and distinguishes by quotation marks, as if they were ex- 
tracted, verbatim, from the declarations of some of the jury- 
men, are not to be found, as he quotes them, in those declar- 
ations. The passage, I refer to, is as follows ; — '' I am confi- 
dent that I did not say that I, ' as a friend of the family, 
had examined the accounts, and found that there was no 
ground of complaint ; ' nor that I had ' so represented it to 
the heirs ;' nor that ' some of them had, notwithstanding, 
refused to sign a deed of the house.' Indeed such state- 
ments have an inherent absurdity," &c. [L. p. IL] 

Now, although these quoted expressions are to be found, 
very nearly, in one of my letters to Mr. Lowell, written be- 
fore the examination of the jurors, and stating the informa- 
tion I had then received respecting his testimony, they are 
not expressions used by either of the witnesses in their declar- 
ations, which were all I relied upon in my pamphlet. The 
ideas may be similar; but these are not their words ; and 
when Mr. Lowell is labouring to show, that the testimony of 
the jurors ought not to be believed, because I had put words 
into their mouths, why does he, while giving the reader an 
impression that he is contradicting their statements, select ex- 
pressions from my letters instead of their declarations ? He 
himself first puts words, which they never used, into the 
mouths of the witnesses, and then denies that they are true. 
The witnesses, indeed, do say, unfortunately for Mr. Low- 
ell's denial, what comes, in effect, to the same thing, though 
not in those precise words ; and such statements have, ac- 
cording to Mr. Lowell, an ''inherent absurdity." Why? Be- 
cause, he says, " The refusal to sign the deed occurred in 
May, 1844 ; no request that they [the heirs] should sign it 
was, after that period, ever made to them ; whilst the ac- 
counts were not m.ade up, or presented, until November, 1844." 
[L. p. 11.] The refusal, by the way, first occurred in April, 
not May ; but I beg to ask, whether there was not a contin- 
uing refusal, to sign the deed, from that time, until the final 
settlement was agreed upon ? The accounts were not made 
up, or rather not presented, it is true, till Nov. 18, 1844; but, 



118 

it is also true, that the settlement was not agreed upon until 
sometime in December; Mr. Lowell himself says, Dec. 11. 
[L. p. 191.] In the mean time, (some of the heirs having 
originally refused to execute the deed without a change of 
the trustee, which involved a settlement of accounts,) if the 
request for its signature was not formally renewed, after the 
accounts were presented, it was only because the original 
ground of refusal still continued unchanged, until the agree- 
ment of compromise was made. Before that event, Mr. Lowell 
^ was negotiating with me, or my counsel. Judge Warren, to in- 
duce us to allow the account, in order that the deed might 
be obtained. It was literally true, therefore, that Mr. Low- 
ell's statement of the result of the accounts was represented 
to the heirs, and that some of them, notwithstanding, did^ 
continually, refuse to sign the deed, until it was, at last, 
otherwise agreed, on a compromise. So that Mr. Lowell 
might Avell have stated this to the jury, just as it was 
expressed in my letter, without the absurdity of attributing 
" an antecedent event to a subsequent cause," which, he 
says, " requires a peculiar constitution of mind," and to 
him " would have been impossible." [L. p. 12.] He might 
have so stated, consistently with truth ; the jurors, in sub- 
stance, say, he did so state ; no one of his own witnesses 
denies it ; and the reason he assigns, why he could not so 
have stated, is the supposition of an absurdity^ which does 
not exist ; for the account was presented on the 18th of No- 
vember, and the deed in question was not made till the 14th 
of December. The dates of the papers put this beyond dis- 
pute. 

In respect, therefore, to the substance of Mr. Lowell's tes- 
timony at the inquest, enlarged by what he said to the ju- 
rors in the conversation, which immediately followed it, 
there cannot be any important question, upon a fair view of 
the evidence on both sides. The direct declarations of the 
five witnesses, examined in December, 1846, are so clear, 
upon its general complexion, that Mr. Lowell himself cannot 
but admit, that " they all agree," that his testimony ''tend- 
edj more or less clearly, to the conclusion, that the death of 



119 

Mr. Boott was attributable to uneasiness of mind, caused by 
' the unhappy difficulties in the family, especially in relation 
to the estate,' " [L. p. 6.] of which the deceased had the man- 
agement ; while he also admits that he stated his opinion, 
without qualification, that the deceased was not insane. 
The same witnesses all speak, positively, too, and with that 
general agreement, coupled with slight variations, which 
marks fair testimony, to certain particular facts, stated by Mr. 
Lowell, which led them to that conclusion, and pointed it at 
me, as the party, who had chiefly caused these difficulties, 
and this melancholy consequence. The statements on the 
other side, obtained by Mr. Lowell from the coroner, in March, 
1845, and December, 1846, and the letters obtained by him 
from Dr. Putnam and Mr. K. Boott, in December, 1846, and 
January, 1847, are not found, upon a fair comparison, to 
contradict those declarations on any material point, but 
confirm them in such facts as they particularly speak of. 
And since those witnesses are all, by circumstances, fa- 
vourably disposed to Mr. Lowell, and two of them plainly 
sympathize in his general views of the case, I ask, whether, 
if there were any essential error, or mis-statement, in the de- 
clarations of the jurors, Mr. Lowell would not have obtained, 
from these friendly witnesses, the decided correction, or direct 
contradiction, to which he would have been justly entitled ? 
His omission to do so, makes them, in effect, corroborative 
witnesses of the whole matter, and makes Mr. Lowell a wit- 
ness against himself. — as indeed he is, to a great extent, by 
the terms of his own published statement, prepared, as he 
says, before he knew what the jurors would testify. His 
own unsupported contradictions, after that, can only prove 
inaccuracy of recollection or wilfulness in error. 



120 



CHAPTER XV. 

OUTLINE OF MY FORMER STATEMENT RESPECTING THE 
ACCOUNTS. 

We have, now, settled the point, I trust, that Mr. Lowell's 
remarks to the jury, whether in the form of testimony or of 
conversation, were, in substance, what I had supposed them 
to be. It is plain that their tenor was in entire accordance 
with the allegations, and the real or pretended opinions, 
which he has since had the temerity to print. The truth 
and justice of the printed '' Reply " are next to be exam- 
ined ; and I shall proceed to demonstrate, from the evidence 
in my former pamphlet, and from the '' Reply " itself, con- 
nected with other evidence contained in these pages, that 
the opinions it promulgates, if honest, are mistaken ; that its 
arguments, though sometimes specious, are deceptive ; and 
that its statement of fundamental facts is essentially untrue. 

I propose to begin with the matter of Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
accounts, and the topics, connected therewith, regarding his 
fitness for a trustee, independently of the question of his 
sanity ; — this being the matter, which I consider to lie at the 
foundation of the whole controversy between Mr. Lowell 
and myself. To be intelligible, I must make a brief reca- 
pitulation of the substance of my former statements on the 
subject. 

Mr. Kirk Boott, the elder, died in 1817, leaving, as was 
reputed, quite a large property for that day, all personal, 
, except a house, store, and lot of land, which were appraised 
at $34,100 only. His will established particular trust funds, 
out of his personal estate, for the benefit, during life, of his 
widow and of two sisters. These funds amounted, in the 
aggregate, to $111,111 12. The fund for the widow was 
$100,000 ; the income of it was to be hers, and she had, 
besides, a life estate in the mansion-house. All the resi- 



121 

due of the personal property, except household furniture 
and other chattels, bequeathed to the widow, was given, 
equally, to the testator's children, nine in number. The 
reversion of the annuity funds and of the mansion-house 
was, also, given to them. 

Mr. J. Wright Boott, the eldest son, by the effect of the 
will and other circumstances, united in himself the respon- 
sible posts of sole surviving partner, sole executor, sole trus- 
tee of the trust funds, and sole testamentary guardian of the 
minor children ; so that the whole family property, except 
the mansion-house, was at his disposal ; and the mansion- 
house he was empowered, as executor, to sell, on certain 
contingencies, with the assent of the widow. 

The inventory, returned to the probate ofiice, exhibited 
only the real estate and the chattels bequeathed to the wid- 
ow. Its whole amount was short of $37,000, of which the 
mansion-house constituted $24,000, and the store in State- 
street, devised specifically to Mr. J. Wright Boott, in addi- 
tion to his share of the general property, constituted $9600. 
The residue of the real estate, appraised at $500, was de- 
vised to the widow. 

An account, settled by the executor in the Probate Court, 
in 1818, charged him with stocks purchased, to the exact 
amount (within one cent) of the particular trust funds, 
taking the stocks at par and excluding the premiums paid 
for them. The nominal foot of the account was a little 
short of $117,000. Of this, however, $10,000 was a mere 
counter-entry, representing that amount not yet payable 
on certain bank stock charged at its par. In other words, 
the account showed cash, realized and invested at that date, 
to the amount of nearly $107,000, and an engagement to 
pay $10,000 more, shortly, to complete an investment. It 
gave no further information concerning the estate ; and no 
other account of the property was ever settled, or presented, 
until a controversy had arisen and a change of trusteeship 
had become necessary, more than twenty-six years after. 

No settlement was ever made with any one heir, for his or 
her share of the property presently divisible, though mon- 



122 

eys were paid to, or for, the heirs respectively, sometimes spe- 
cifically on account of their patrimony, and sometimes not, 
and with no regularity, or equality. The heirs never knew, 
and had no means of knowing, except from some occasional 
and general statements, verbally made by Mr. J. Wright 
Boott, what they were entitled to receive. 

This arose from peculiarities of his character, which led 
him to wrap himself in total reserve on such subjects, com- 
bined with an extraordinary degree of deference and confi- 
dence on the part of every member of the family, and with 
a want of solicitude, quite unusual among so many persons, 
about mere pecuniary interests. These circumstances, habit- 
ually, restrained them from attempting to penetrate Mr. 
Boott 's reserve by calling for a statement and settlement 
of accounts. 

The family, until separated by marriages, all lived togeth- 
er, as members of Mrs. Boott's household, in a style of such 
liberal expenditure as belongs to people of fortune. Mr. 
Boott kept no accounts with the individuals, nor with the 
estate. His verbal statements, on particular occasions, uni- 
formly represented, and caused it to be understood, that the 
dividend of each child, upon a final settlement, would be 
$20,000 in possession or thereabouts, besides a share of the 
reversions. This was, in effect, a representation that the 
personal estate of the father had amounted to about f 180,000, 
besides the trust funds of about $111,000. These sums, 
added to the inventory, would have made the whole property, 
real and personal, left by the father, upwards of $320,000 ; 
for all which, except the property named in the inventory, 
(short of $37,000,) Mr. J. Wright Boott, if the fact were as 
he represented it, stood accountable, as executor or trustee, to 
the nine heirs, of whom he himself was one. That is, he 
should have held, or accounted for, as executor or trustee, 
in all, over $290,000, of which $20,000, in immediate pos- 
session, and something more than $12,000 in reversion at 
the deaths of the respective annuitants, belonged to himself. 
Of course, during the lives of the annuitants, he was bound 
to show $111,000 secured in trust for them, and $160,000 



12 



(i. e. $180,000, less $20,000 for his own share,) held in trust 
for his brothers and sisters, subject to be reduced by what- 
ever sums he might have paid over, or should pay over, to 
them, out of the $160,000, for account of their respective 
shares in it. 

Mr. J. Wright Boott had been a partner with his father, 
about three years, under the firm of Kirk Boott & Sons. 
Another partner, but for a very short time, was the present 
Doctor Francis Boott, of London. By the direction of the 
will, the business of the firm was to be carried on, by Mr. 
J. Wright Boott, for the joint account of the estate and 
himself, till March 19, 1818, when it was to be wound up, 
and the estate distributed. The terms of the partnership 
were, three fourths of the profit or loss to the estate, and one 
fourth to Mr. J. Wright Boott, after deducting five per cent, 
interest on the capital employed. 

The distribution directed never took place ; but, at the 
expiration of the term fixed by the will, Mr. J. Wright 
Boott took up the business in partnership with two of his 
brothers, (the late Mr. Kirk Boott, of Lowell, and Mr. James 
Boott,) and carried it on, under the old firm of Kirk Boott 
& Sons, until January 1, 1822, when that house was dis- 
solved, and Mr. J. Wright Boott formed a new partnership 
with Mr. John A. Lowell, under the firm of Boott & Lowell, 
which firm prosecuted the same business till July 1, 1824, 
when that also was dissolved. My belief, as I stated, was, 
that the capital of the estate in the old house had been carried 
into the business of the new house of Kirk Boott & Sons ; 
that there had never been any accurate settlement of accounts 
between them ; and that nothing had been taken out, so as 
to be distinguishable as the separate property of the estate, 
except in the formation of the trust fund, by the investments 
described in the probate account of 1818. 

The business of the second house of Kirk Boott & Sons, 
as conducted by the three brothers, appeared to me, from cer- 
tain evidence, which I stated, to have been attended with 
great loss. That of Boott 6& Lowell, I had no evidence 
about. I also stated my reasons for believing that Mr. J. 



124 

Wright Boott, though commonly reputed to be a man pos- 
sessed of some $50,000, or more, in his own right, was really- 
worth little or nothing, unless of a reversionary character, at 
the time of the formation of the partnership of Boott & 
Lowell ; and that, whatever losses were met with, in the 
mercantile business pursued after the death of the father, fell, 
in effect, mainly, upon the family property, and under cir- 
cumstances, which made the executor personally liable for 
them to the heirs. 

During the continuance of this mercantile business, Mr. 
J. Wright Boott became interested in manufacturing busi- 
ness also. He first made a considerable investment in the 
Boston Manufacturing Company, and afterwards went, large- 
ly, into the Lowell (then called Chelmsford) speculation. 
Early in 1826, he also went into the business of an iron 
foundry, in company with his brothers-in-law, Messrs. Ly- 
man & Ralston. He embarked a very large sum in that, 
which was mostly, if not wholly, lost. The concern fell 
under great embarrassment. A ruinous failure was appre- 
hended. In 1830 and 1831, Mr. J. Yf right Boott found him- 
self compelled to make disclosures of his affairs to one of his 
brothers and to Mr. John A. Lowell and myself; and it then 
appeared, that he had no property Avhatever standing in 
his name as executor, or trustee ; that even the particular 
trust fund, formed in 1818, no longer existed as a separate 
and distinct fund ; that every thing in his hands stood in 
his own individual name, as if it were his own property ; and 
that the funds of the estate had been so mingled, indiscrim- 
inately, with his own, (if he had any, which could justly be 
called his own, after settling with his father's estate,) that, 
through his various operations in trade and speculation, al- 
ways conducted in his own name, it had become impossible 
to say, at the time of these disclosures, what item of prop- 
erty, besides the store, was his own, and what, besides the 
mansion-house, was the estate's. But it also appeared, very 
clearly, that all the property he then held, of every descrip- 
tion, was insufficient to meet his debts and liabilities, (includ- 
ing a debt of $20,000 to certain wards, not of the immediate 



125 

family,) and to cover his mother's annuity fund. Had he 
been compelled, suddenly, to pay off these debts and liabili- 
ties, out of the family, it was plain that it could only have 
been done by appropriating to that use a large portion of the 
annuity fund, as well as all the present property of his broth- 
ers and sisters, beyond what had been paid to them ; and 
such was the disastrous state of his affairs, that there was 
even danger of a total loss of the family property. 

The most valuable kind of property, he held, was a large 
amount of manufacturing stock. But, nearly the whole of 
this was pledged for large sums of money ; namely, a debt 
of $30,000 to Mr. Lowell, and one of $21,000 to Mr. Sturgis, 
as agent for Mr. Gushing. The residue was conveyed to me, 
in trust, to secure, in the first instance, the debt of $20,000 
to his wards, (for which the estate was liable,) and next to 
secure the estate. Means were taken to prevent a sacrifice of 
all this valuable stock, and to secure it to the estate, subject 
to these debts. His other assets were gradually reduced to 
money, and applied to the payment of the debts out of his ovni 
family. He was, thus, by degrees, extricated from the more 
pressing embarrassments ; but, whatever property of his own 
he might formerly have had, except certain reversionary in- 
terests, it was at that time lost ; and whatever remained in 
his hands belonged to the trusts of his father's estate, to which 
he admitted himself largely indebted, though no account 
was settled, by which the amount could be ascertained. 
His brothers and sisters, out of tenderness to him, voluntarily 
released, in 1833, all their claims, except on the reversions of 
the annuity funds. Through friendly arrangements, he was 
enabled to hold on to the manufacturing stock, — the whole 
of which was admitted to belong to him only in his capacity 
of executor, though subject to the private debts, for which 
he had pledged it. It yielded large income, and rose in 
value ; and by means of its income, and of the conversion 
of his other assets, these incumbrances were gradually les- 
sened. At last, his debt, out of the family, became reduced 
to the single sum of $25,000, due to Mr. Lowell, and secured 
by a large amount of the manufacturing stock. 



126 

The income from all the manufacturing stock, held either 
by himself, as executor, or in pledge by Mr. Lowell, was 
sufficient to keep down interest on the debt ; to pay about 
$5000 a year to his mother, Avho had removed to England ; 
and to meet the expense of an establishment kept up at the 
family mansion. He engaged in no new business, and had 
no means of meeting these various expenditures, except the 
income of the manufacturing stock, — the whole of which 
stock was considered to have been purchased with the funds 
of the estate, and to belong to him only in his capacity 
of executor. 

My general position, therefore, was, that a large amount of 
the property of the estate had, in fact, gone to the payment 
of Mr. J. Wright Boott's private debts, and had been lost by 
him in the business he had engaged in. Of this, no com- 
plaint ever was, or probably ever would have been, made by 
any of the heirs ; but the fact is material in its bearing on the 
present controversy. I did not attribute this to any wrong 
intention whatever on his part ; but to want of system in 
business, and of accuracy in accounts, and to the omission of 
proper settlements, and to singular obliquities of perception on 
the subjects of family property, and of the duties of a trust, 
in which none but his own family were concerned ] and to 
other peculiarities of character, amounting, at last, in my 
judgement, to plain insanity. Circumstances had placed the 
affairs of the estate in a position, from which they could not 
be extricated, unless very gradually ; and extreme tender- 
ness and forbearance towards Mr. J. Wright Boott, on the 
part of every member of the family, who knew any thing of 
the facts, suffered the care of the property to remain in his 
hands for many years, during which he exhibited no dis- 
position either to engage in new speculations, or to make 
changes of investment ; and it so remained until new events 
arose, which dictated, in 1844, a different course of action. 

His conduct had, for some time, betrayed evident symp- 
toms of insanity, in my opinion, and in that of some others 
of the family. He had, besides, become completely estranged 
from many of them. In this state of the family relations, a 



127 

bargain had been made for a sale of the mansion-house, on 
terms satisfactory to all interested in it ; but deeds of con- 
firmation were required from the heirs, to give the purchaser a 
good title. I refused, for one, and Mr. William Boott refused 
also, to execute such deeds, if the purchase money was to be 
left at Mr. J. Wright Boott's disposal and management, — it 
being understood that he intended to invest the proceeds, 
partly at least, in the purchase of an estate in the country, 
and the erection upon it of a house and green-house, for his 
own use ; which, as an investment of trust property, did 
not meet our approbation. The appointment of a new 
trustee thus became requisite ; and that involved a settle- 
ment of the executor's accounts at the Probate Office. Mr. 
John A. Lowell acted for Mr. Boott in the business. The 
debt of $25,000 to Mr. Lowell was still unpaid, and he 
still held the manufacturing stock, which had been pledged 
for it. That stock I considered to be the property of the 
family, but pledged for Mr. J. Wright Boott's private debt, 
under such circumstances, as I then supposed, that no at- 
tempt ought to be made to prevent its application to the 
payment of Mr. Lowell. When, however, it became neces- 
sary to state an account of the executorship, instead of 
beginning with the position of the estate at the time of the 
release from the heirs in 1833, and placing the security for 
Mr. Lowell's debt on its true ground, an executor's account 
was prepared for Mr. Boott, by Mr. Lowell, in a form, which 
purported to be an account of the executorship from the be- 
ginnmg, and to exhibit, at the same time, an apparent bal- 
ance of $25,000, as due from the estate to the executor. 
Mr. Lowell, contemporaneously with the presenting of this 
account, reconveyed to Mr. Boott, in that capacity, the 
shares, which he had held in pledge. The account was 
extremely general, appearing to state certain supposed re- 
sults, rather than to exhibit actual transactions in detail. 
It purported to account for capital, exclusive of real estate 
and chattels bequeathed to the widow, to the amount of 
about $186,000 only. Of this, $90,000 was claimed to have 
been distributed among the heirs, leaving a deficiency of 



128 

about $4000, to be made up, in the fund for the support of 
Mrs. Boott. It exhibited, however, personal property on 
hand, amounting, at its cost, to $119,000, from which, 
$25,000 and upwards was claimed to be deducted, as being 
due to the executor personally. 

I considered this a mere form, intended to provide for the 
payment of the debt to Mr. Lowell, without admitting, upon 
the face of the account, that the property of the family had 
been taken to pay it ; and I supposed the account to have 
been framed in the manner, in which it was framed, for the 
purpose of bringing out that apparent balance, so as to pro- 
vide for the payment to Mr. Lowell, in the form most 
agreeable to Mr. Boott, and to give up, for the security of 
Mrs. Boott's annuity fund, all the property, that would still 
remain, after payment of that debt, which was the last 
remnant of the embarrassments of 1830. In that view, all 
proof of the account was waived, under an agreement of 
compromise, — the heirs executing the required deed of the 
mansion-house, — Mr. Boott resigning his trust, — a new 
trustee, satisfactory to all parties, being appointed, — and 
releases of all claims on Mr. Boott, either as executor or 
as trustee, being filed in the Probate Office, upon which, in 
lieu of other vouchers, the account was passed, as an account 
agreed to by all parties concerned. 

Such is a very general outline of my former statement, 
omitting numerous details, to which I shall have occasion to 
advert, when they become material, in considering Mr. 
Lowell's '' Reply." 

The proofs, I exhibited, were chiefly of a documentary 
character. Little depended on my own unassisted memory, 
— Mr. Lowell, to the contrary, notwithstanding. I was par- 
ticularly careful to distinguish between facts, stated as of my 
own knowledge, and mere inferences ; and when I stated in- 
ferences, I exhibited, in extenso, the evidence, from which 
they were drawn, so that my readers could judge, for them- 
selves, how far they were warranted. If Mr. Lowell had 
followed that example, instead of dealing in round assertions, 
without showing his proofs, or showing only "choice ex- 



129 

tracts," instead of documents in full, (except in a few instances) 
it would have left him, comparatively, little ground to stand 
upon. But the ground, on which he stands, now, is so little, 
that I have no desire to make it less. I propose, only, to clear 
off the mystification, in which it has been enveloped, so that 
its true dimensions and character may be distinctly seen. In 
truth, nothing, in the foregoing statement, that is essential to 
the main question, has been, in the least degree, shaken by 
the " Reply." The statement will be found to require modi- 
fication in some particulars ; but every new piece of evidence, 
which I have discovered, has tended to prove the loss and 
mismanagement more conclusively, and to indicate that they 
could hardly have been unknown to Mr. Lowell. 



CHAPTER XVI. 
MR. Lowell's proof of mr. boott's good management. 

HIS PRETENCE THAT I HAVE NO RIGHT TO QUESTION THE 
ACCOUNTS. 

The general question, forced upon me by Mr. Lowell, is. 
Did, or did not, Mr. J. Wright Boott mismanage the concerns 
entrusted to him as executor, trustee, and guardian, under his 
father's will ? 

Mr. Lowell, as we have seen, undertook to testify, or state, 
in terms, or eifect, to the coroner's jury, that my unfortunate 
brother-in-law had been falsely charged by me with mis- 
management in those relations ; and he now undertakes to 
say, that this gentleman '' was, in substance, whatever he 
might be in form, a remarkably good manager of trust prop- 
erty." [L. p. 97.] 

To be sure, the particular proof, he adduces, is one of Mr. 
Boott's guardianship accounts, for a ward not belonging to 



130 

the immediate family. This is merely raising a new and 
false issue. It has nothing to do with the management of 
his father's estate, which is the whole matter in controversy. 
It serves, however; to draw aside the attention of the reader 
from the true question, and at the same time to give him a 
false impression of Mr. Boott's financial ability, by exhibit- 
ing, for his admiration, what Mr. Lowell calls " so brilliant a 
result," [L. p. 99.] in the building up, from a capital of 
$12,500, one of $27,600, after having appropriated about 
$11,000 to the expenses of the v/ard. "If any one," says 
Mr. Lowell, '• can point to a more successful administration 
of a trust fund, I should like much to see it." [L. p. 99.] 

Now I have no disposition to go much into the particulars 
of this account, since it is not the account, with which my 
business lies. But, since Mr. Lowell puts it forward, in so 
triumphant a tone, as an uncommon example of excellent 
administration, I feel bound to point out a few facts con- 
cerning it. 

I refer, for the evidence of them, to the account itself in 
the probate records, to Mr. Lowell's list of the property, 
[L. p. 99.] and to a second letter from Mr. John S. Tyler, 
respecting the amount of cash in the guardian's hands, 
which I shall by-and-by print. [Post, Ch. 24.] 

In the first place, the reader's admiration at the thing must 
be considerably abated, when he is told, that the period of 
accumulation was upwards of eighteen years, and when he re- 
flects, that an ordinary six per cent, investment, of such a cap- 
ital, if the income were added from year to year to the invest- 
ment, and nothing were withdrawn for expenses, would, in 
that time, produce about $37,000, instead of $27,000, with- 
out any extraordinary skill in the manager. In the next 
place, it appears by the account, that the expenses of the 
ward, during the first ten years, averaged only about $420 
a year, and that the guardian charged nothing, for his own 
services and expenses in the business, during the whole term 
of the account. An excellent trust investment of the whole 
capital was made in the outset, it is true, by the purchase of 
U. S. stocks at a lov/ price ; but, at that time, the father of 



131 

Mr. J. Wright Boott was associated with him in this guardian- 
ship, and doubtless directed that investment. Mr. J. Wright 
Boott, as surviving guardian, afterwards sold out these 
stocks, and a profit accrued, in consequence of their low 
cost, of about $2000. The subsequent investments, made 
by Mr. J. Wright Boott, were all, except to the amount of 
about $2500, embarked in the special risks of manufacturing 
and insurance. With these facts before us, we shall find 
no such astonishing proof of good management, in a fortu- 
nate result, aided by the omission of usual charges. 

But what shall we say, when we further find, that, of the 
$27,000 and upwards of property, delivered to the ward, in 
1835, nearly $9000 was uninvested cash 1 and that, of this 
uninvested sum, upwards of $7000 was the mere simple 
interest of moneys, luhich had been lying in the guardian's 
hands, for his oion use, some ten or twelve years, to an 
amount almost equal to the origijial capital ? Does that 
prove good management ? Or, is it an answer to say, that, 
as the event turned, the ward lost nothing by it ? 

True, Mr. Lowell informs us, that, '^ with respect to his 
having had a part of the money in his own hands, at times, 
paying interest therefor, I am authorized by Judge Loring, 
[the husband of this ward,] to state that the accounts 
were annually made up and submitted to Mrs. F. Boott, 
[her mother,] the investments being explained and thor- 
oughly understood and approved by her.'''' [L. p. 99.] 

Now, if Judge Loring has authorized these statements, in 
all their length and breadth, as matter within his personal 
knowledge, I shall certainly deem them to be unquestiona- 
ble, although they must carry back his acquaintance with 
the dealings, between the mother and the guardian of his wife, 
to a somewhat early period ; for the ward could have been 
only about three years old, when the guardianship began. 
But one cannot fail to remark, on inspecting the account, 
how little trouble it must have cost the guardian to explain 
his investme7its, during a pretty long series of years, within 
which, with a large sum of money to invest, there was 
scarcely a single investment made ; and as for the thorough 



132 

understanding and approval of the accounts, by Mrs. F. 
Boott, unless she differs from most ladies in such matters, 
every man of business will be able to estimate the value of 
that. What does it mean, when we find large cash balances, 
for years, uninvested, except that she reposed absolute confi- 
dence in Mr. Boott's ability, as she well might in his inten- 
tion, to do ample justice to his ward ? What would she have 
thought, in 1830, when the uninvested moneys, lying in his 
hands, on this single account, with the simple interest upon 
them, amounted to over $15,000, unsecured, except by his 
guardianship bond, had she been aware of the fact, and had 
she also known, that he was, at that time, actually insolvent, 
and without means of paying this debt, and like debts to her 
other children, except by taking for that purpose the prop- 
erty of his mother, and brothers and sisters ? Would that 
have met her unqualified approval ? Such was the fact, in 
1830, as will presently be seen ; and when he settled his 
accounts with these wards, in 1835, he was, then, enabled 
to pay them, in full, only by using property, Avhich justly 
belonged to his father's estate. 

I have already shown, [Ante, Ch. 6.] that it was no fault 
of Mr. J. Wright Boott, that this account did not exhibit a still 
more brilliant aspect. He would have swelled the $27,600 of 
final property, by the addition of about $4000 more, in 
compounding interest. I used the fact, formerly, to illus- 
trate a characteristic peculiarity, which seemed to disenable 
him from perceiving, that, circumstanced as he was at the 
time of this settlement, generosity to his ward was injustice 
to others, more intimately dependant on him. The examin- 
ation of this account, which Mr. Lowell has occasioned, 
by dragging it up as a specimen of such uncommonly 
judicious trusteeship, now leads me to observe another fact 
in it, which both illustrates further the sort of romantic sen- 
timent, which Mr. Boott carried into these business transac- 
tions, and tends, at the same time, to throw more light on 
that increase of capital, which Mr. Lowell applauds so loudly. 
During the first four or five years of his guardianship, 
and before the great sale of stock in 1821, which placed 



133 

about $12,000 in his hands, he not only charged nothing 
for services, but repeatedly over-invested on this account ; 
that is, he chose, not only to give his services, but to use 
his own moneys, or the moneys of his father's estate, as the 
case may have been, to make up a good account for his 
ward. And yet, from 1821 forward, instead of over-invest- 
ing, he so entirely changed his course, as to sell stock, held 
for this particular ward, to the amount of about f 12,000, 
and to make like sales for his other wards, and to keep the 
greater part of the proceeds, for his own use, uninvested, 
until the time of settlement was near at hand. 

So much for the particular example, which Mr. Lowell 
chooses to produce, of Mr. Boott's excellent management and 
business-like habits as a trustee. It seems to me rather an 
unfortunate illustration ; and the manner, in which Mr. 
Lowell treats it, upon a hasty glance at the result, without 
attending to facts, which become apparent upon examina- 
tion of the account, and which, when seen, counteract his 
own object, affords another example of just such carelessness 
as he is so fond of imputing to me. 

But another carelessness, less venial, lies in a prefatory re- 
mark, made by way of excuse for putting forward a supposed 
instance of good management so entirely foreign to the issne. 
He says, '' I will take, in preference, [to the accounts directly 
in issue] another set of accounts, concerning which Mr. 
Brooks has charged him [Mr. Boott] with ^unfaithfulness.'' " 
[L. p. 98.] 

This last word is marked by Mr. Lowell as a quotation ; 
and though he makes no reference, it is plain that he in- 
tended to allude to a passage in one of my letters to Mr. 
Wells, (printed by Mr. Lowell, at p. 120) in which I spoke 
of his (Mr. Boott's) '^ unfaithfulness as a guardian and exec- 
utor." Whoever reads that letter will see, that it relates to 
Mr. Boott's conduct towards his brothers and sisters only. 
It makes no allusion to wards, out of the immediate family. 
The unfaithfulness, spoken of, whether that was a proper 
term to use or not, applied, entirely, to his care of the family 
property. It was as the testamentary guardian of his broth- 



134 

ers and sisters, while under age, and as executor of his fa- 
ther's will, that, in a moment of just irritation, I described 
him as unfaithful. The whole context of the letter shows 
this so plainly, that I can hardly attribute Mr. Lowell's per- 
version of it to mere oversight. But, having, as he conceived, 
a very striking instance before him of successful execution 
of a trust, in the case of Mr. Boott's guardianship of certain 
children distantly related to him, he picks this phrase out of 
m^y letter, where it is applied to the guardianship of Mr. 
Boott's own brothers and sisters, and represents me as hav- 
ing applied it to the very case he is about to adduce. Why 
is this ? Simply because he could not show a favourable ex- 
ample of guardianship, in the case of the brothers and sisters, 
as he thought he could, in the case of the cousins, to a very 
eminent degree ; and, by making me characterize " so brill- 
iant a result " as ''unfaithfulness" of guardianship, he con- 
trives to impress his reader with the belief, that my language 
was not merely harsh and uncalled for, but so utterly desti- 
tute of any reasonable foundation, as to indicate perverseness 
of mind and malignity of purpose. Is this fair dealing ? 

Had Mr. Boott shown such accounts, and made such set- 
tlements, with his brothers and sisters, producing a like 
accumulation of capital for them, I should never have 
dreamed, under any provocation, of calling his guardianship 
unfaithful ; although, in view of the means, by which the 
result was accomplished, I might not have considered it the 
best proof in the world that he was '' a remarkably good 
manager of trust property. ^^ But, when we find, as we 
shall, that this very '' brilliant result " was attained, for his 
other wards, at the expense of his brothers and sisters, every 
reader will begin to wonder where the proof of the good 
management lies. 

Let us turn, then, to the accounts, which really are in 
issue. 

Mr. Lowell's first and last position, in respect to the pro- 
bate account, which he prepared for Mr. Boott, is, that I have 
no longer a right, either in law or in conscience, to question 
it, because it has once been settled and passed ; and that, if 



135 

I do, most imconscientionsly, persist, notwithstanding, in 
denying its correctness, the burden is on me to prove what 
the account ought to be, and to establish, beyond question, 
each particular error. [L. pp. 37. 208.] I believe I shall 
have no difficulty in showing enough of error and of material 
omission, for all purposes of this inquiry ; and, although I 
may not be so fully and minutely possessed of all Mr. Boott's 
transactions, during the period of his executorship, as to be 
able to state an exact account myself, I am much mistaken 
if I do not show enough of error and omission to throw a 
considerable burden upon Mr. Lowell. 

But, the argument is, that, if the account was settled, as I 
aver, upon a compromise, it was the basis of that compromise, 
that it should never, afterwards, be disputed. The passing of 
the account, it is said, was, '' to Mr. Boott, a question of more 
than money ; — it was a question of life. And by every prin- 
ciple of honour, and humanity, and fair dealing, he was as 
much entitled to the benefit of the compromise, if compro- 
mise it were, at the bar of public opinion, and after his death, 
as when alive and claiming the final allowance of his account 
before a court of probate." [L. p. 208.] 

This is fine declamation ; but the truth of the principle, it 
asserts, "depends, entirely, on what the question is, and between 
what parties. If Mr. Lowell means to say, that I have no 
right to disturb the pecuniary settlement, or to go behind 
the account for the purpose of setting up a valuable claim, in 
the absence of any fraud, or essential mistake, shown in the 
account, or in the settlement, I should entirely agree with 
him. whether the account were passed on full proof, or by 
mere agreement without proof. But, if he means to say, that 
I have no right, in honour and fairness, — because that account 
was permitted to pass, without proof or question, upon a pre- 
vious compromise, — to inquire, now, whether Mr. Boott man- 
aged his father's estate judiciously and profitably or other- 
wise, and to inquire, with reference to that question, what the 
account shows, and what it ought to have shown, I beg the 
reader to consider, how, and between whom, this issue has 
arisen. 



136 

The compromise J on the basis of that account, was a com- 
promise between me and Mr. Lowell, he acting as the agent 
of Mr. Boott, and as a party directly interested in its settle- 
ment, so far, at least, as the payment of a large debt to himself 
was concerned, for trust moneys, that he had lent to Mr. 
Boott. If the settlement fairly imported, or implied, that no 
question was afterwards to be made about Mr. Boott's former 
management of his father's estate, it was a bargain that 
tied Mr. Lowell, as much as it tied me. Can he break the 
compact, when he pleases, and yet hold me in honour bound 
to silence ? What happens ? Without my knowledge, and 
without provocation, Mr. Lowell covertly gives out to a cor- 
oner's jury, and to others, that I had falsely charged Mr. 
Boott, in his life-time, with mismanagement of a trust, 
and that this account, prepared by Mr. Lowell, and exhibit- 
ing a balance in Mr. Boott's favour, — disputed by me, (so the 
statement went,) but allowed, nevertheless, by the judge of 
probate, — was a triumphant vindication of Mr. Boott, and posi- 
tive proof that my charge was destitute of foundation ; — and, 
by connecting this with other statements, he causes it to be 
believed, that Mr. Boott came to his death in consequence of 
that false charge and of other misconduct of mine, connected 
with it. Let the reader judge, then, whether I am not at lib- . 
erty, or rather whether I am not bound, to prove, in my own 
justification, that the charge was true, this account to the 
contrary notwithstanding, and that I was compelled, by cir- 
cumstances, to act as I did. 

As between me and Mr. Lowell, where the present issue 
lies, the whole subject has been thrown open by his own 
act, in breach of the spirit of the compromise, as he himself 
states it. Not only so, but I insist further, that, as between 
him and me, the burden rests, not upon me to rectify this ac- 
count, or to point out its errors with precision, but upon him 
to show its substantial correctness ; since it was an account 
prepared by himself, as will presently appear, from materials 
and data in his own possession, quite inaccessible to me, — an 
account, which was never proved, nor supported by the ex- 
hibition of a single voucher, and one, which, he knows, I 



137 

never admitted to be a full and true account, but which, 
denying the apparent balance to be due, I suffered to pass, 
without proof or question, in the probate court, only upon 
the faith of a compromise out of court, which Mr. Lowell 
now disregards, and even repudiates. 

Yes, Mr. Lowell has the boldness to deny, by implication 
at least, that there was any compromise in the case. ^' I do 
not know," he says, '^ what sort of a compromise that is, 
where one side gives up every thing and the other nothing — 
literally nothing ; for, as to Mr. Boott's declining, as he did, 
to accept the trusteeship, I had said to Mr. Loring, before 
the accounts were presented at the probate office, that I 
should advise Mr. Boott, as soon as they were passed, to give 
up all charge of the property in order to avoid any future 
collision." [L. p. 206.] 

Now, the compromise agreed upon, as I state it^ was, that 
Mr. William Boott, and Mrs. Brooks and myself, would execute 
the required deed of the mansion-house, and would also exe- 
cute a full release of all claims on Mr. Boott, and would per- 
mit his account to pass, without question or proof, provided he 
would resign his trust, and place the remaining funds, which 
his account admits, together with the proceeds of the mansion- 
house, in the hands of a new trustee, namely, C. G. Loring, 
Esq., in whom all parties had confidence. This, says Mr. 
Lowell, was no compromise, because '' / had said to Mr. 
Loringj before the accounts were presented at the probate 
office, that I should advise Mr. Boott, as soon as they were 
passed, to give up all charge of the property." What Mr. 
Lowell may have said to his own counsel, nobody knows 
but themselves. It is not pretended that such an idea had 
been communicated to me. And what does it amount to ? 
Why, that, if and when the accounts should be passed, Mr. 
Lowell might, probably, unless he should alter his mind, 
advise Mr. Boott, as a friend, to retire from the trust. But 
does it follow that Mr. Boott, his account being passed, 
would have taken the advice ? Is it certain^ even, that Mr, 
Lowell would have urged it ? 

18 



138 

However this might have been, the question, then at issue, 
was, whether this account should be allowed by the parties 
interested, or not. On the part of myself and Mrs. Brooks and 
Mr. William Boott, knowing nothing of Mr. Lowell's secret 
intentions, or private conferences with his counsel, it was 
said, in eifect, — " We have no faith in this account ; we 
have no belief that it is possible for Mr. Boott to establish 
it ; indeed, we feel confident that the balance claimed is 
not due ; — but we also know, that Mr. Boott has no other 
present means to pay your debt, and that, under a former 
pledge, the property of the estate became, as we suppose, 
justly, though perhaps not legally, bound for it. We are, 
therefore, content, and will agree, to waive all objections, 
and forego all proofs, and take the account just as it stands, 
on the sole condition, that Mr. Boott shall surrender his trust, 
and pass over the property, which he admits, into other 
hands." Mr. Lowell, thereupon, protesting his own belief 
that the account is all right, and that he can prove it, never- 
theless agrees, that, if the opposition to it be withdrawn, 
Mr. Boott shall resign, and the property be passed over, as 
we require. Is not that a compromise ? Is it not a compro- 
mise, by which we gain our point, as much as Mr. Boott, or 
Mr. Lowell, gains his ? Is it the less a compromise, because 
Mr. Lowell secretly intended, all the while, to advise Mr. 
Boott to resign, even if his account should be contested and 
proved ? 

Fortunately, it is not left for Mr. Lowell and myself to 
settle this question on our respective statements ; for we have 
the contemporaneous exposition of a disinterested party, 
through whom the bargain was made. I refer to Judge 
Warren, with whom, acting for me, Mr. Lowell held the in- 
terviews, which, he himself says, " are very fairly reported 
in the letter of that gentleman to Mr. Brooks." [L. p. 34.] 
I printed that letter formerly, but only in an appendix. I 
now insert it in my text. Italicising, with Mr. Lowell's good 
leave, those parts, to which I desire to draw present atten- 
tion : — 



139 



LETTER FROM C. H. WARREN to E. BROOKS. 

Boston, Dec. 19th, 1844. 
Bear Sik : — 

In compliance with your request, I state to you, very briefly, the 
circumstances within my knowledge, relating to the compromise, re- 
cently made between the heirs of the late Mr. Boott. 

On my return to the city, on Nov. 24, 1 saw you, for the first time, 
upon the subject of Mr. J. W. Boott's accounts as executor and trus- 
tee. You then entered into a full history of the circumstances of the 
estate, and the management of the property by the executor, with 
which you were very much dissatisfied. You handed me, at that time, 
a paper, prepared by yourself, and addressed to the Judge of Probate, 
setting forth the particulars, in which you thought Mr. B. had failed 
to discharge his duty as executor ; which paper you proposed to file 
in the probate office. At the same interview, you disclaimed any 
imputation of moral delinquency, or fraudulent conduct on the part of 
Mr. B., and stated, that, although you did not helieve that the account 
presented hy Mr» B, was correct, or that he had the means of present- 
ing a correct account, still, you were not disposed to enter upon a rigid 
investigation of it, if the property, remaining in his hands^ coidd he 
transferred to some other person, so that you coidd he certain that its 
future management would be such as to uphold the trust fund, and 
ensure a fulfilment of the wishes of the testator in regard to it. 

It seemed to me, upon reflection, that your views of the subject 
were such as admitted of an adjustment of a long-standing difficulty, 
in a manner honourable to all parties ; and, from that time, I address- 
ed myself to the accomphshment of that object. 

I advised you not to file the paper, before referred to, in the pro- 
bate office ; as it might tend to excite further ill feeling, and would, 
perhaps, present an insuperable obstacle to a compromise between the 
parties. I then had a conversation with Mr. Loring, the counsel of 
Mr. B., and intimated to him, that I should be most happy in being 
instrumental in making an adjustment of the matter in controversy. 
He met my advances promptly, and asked me to have an interview 
with Mr. LoweU. Mr. Lowell, afterwards, called upon me, and, after 
a full and free conversation upon the subject, I proposed to him to 
waive all examination of the account and its vouchers ; that Mr, B. 
should resign his trust ; and that the heirs, upon his doing so, should 
give him a release from cdl further claims upon him. 

At a subsequent time, I named Mr. C. G. Loring, as a gentleman, 
whose appointment would be perfectly satisfactory to yourself and Mr. 
AV. Boott. 

Mr. Lowell entertained the strongest helief that the account presented 
hy Mr. J. W. Boott was correct, and could he sustained throughout ; 
and it would certainly he unjust to him, to say that his subsequent 
conduct in the matter was founded upon any distrust on thai point. 
At least, he did not intimate any such distrust ; nor did I put my prop- 
osition to him on any sack ground. 



140 

The only motive, I presented, for the adoption of the proposed 
course, was, the great desirableness of preventing any further difficulty 
in regard to pecuniary matters, among the members of the family. 

Mr. Lowell, after considtation luith Mr. J. W. Boott, acceded to 
MY PROPOSITION ; a7id as a consequence, Mr. B. has resigned the 
trust, Mr. Loring has been appointed trustee, and property to the 
amount of $100,000 or more, besides the purchase-money of the house, 
(§46,000,) has been transferred to him. The income of this goes to 
Mrs. Boott for her life, and, upon her death, the principal will be 
divided among the heirs. I should have stated that the amount, above- 
named, is subject to the payment of about $18,000 to Mr. J. W. Boott, 
— the balance claimed as due to him on the account, after deducting 
dividends on Merrimack stock, received by him after the rendition of 
the account. 

The release was then executed by yourself, Mrs. Brooks, and Mr. 
W. Boott; and thus the whole matter was settled. No party appeared 
in the probate court to question Mr. J. W. Booties account ; and, so 
far as I heard, no examination of vouchers has been had, or sought. 
I will only state further, that, upon the facts stated to me, I did advise 
you to withhold your signatures to the deed of the house, until all 
matters in controversy were adjusted. 

In my view of the matter, no concession has been made by either 
party as to the correctness or incorrectness of the account 
presented in the probate office ; but, there being no imputation of 
fraud, the C03ipr03I1Se has been effected upon a basis wholly 
ireespectiye of that question. 

I am, very truly, yours, 

C. H. Warren. 

Edward Brooks, Esq., Boston. 



Is it not amazing, that, in the face of this report of the 
facts, admitted by Mr. Lowell to be a fair one, he should 
venture to suggest, that there was no compro7nise, because 
he had once privately said to his own counsel, (withholding 
the fact from me and from my counsel,) that, when the ac- 
counts should be passed, he intended to advise Mr. Boott 
to surrender his trust, — and, therefore, that it was a case, 
in which one party gave up every thing, and the other 
literally nothing ? Mr. Lowell may thus prove that he got 
the better of me in a bargain, by pretending to yield a point, 
which he never intended to stand upon ; but that cannot 
disprove the fact, that there was a bargain, and one, which I 
thought, and which he represented, to be mutually advan- 
tageous, and mutually concessive. 

In respect to the correctness of the account, it appears, 



141 

however, by Judge Warren's statement, that the question 
was simply withdrawn and waived by mutual consent, 
under a certain agreement, entered into for the sake of an 
amicable family settlement, intended to avoid that question, 
which remained an open one, though each party retired from 
the threatened contest, expressing full confidence, real or 
feigned, in his own ability to secure the victory, if he had 
chosen to pursue it. Mr. Lowell says, the understanding 
was, that this question should never be agitated again. 
Granted: — Yet he, in plain violation of that understand- 
ing, raises this very question anew, when he cites this same 
account against me, as a thing foreclosed, in proof that I had 
falsely charged with mismanagement the party, in whose be- 
half it was stated. In doing so, does he not place the truth 
of the account, for every purpose except that of the actual 
pecuniary settlement, which adopted it as a basis of compro- 
mise " irrespective of that question," precisely where it was ? 
The burden, 1 submit to the reader, in reference to this new 
issue, fairly stands just where it originally stood. The passing 
of the account, without proof, by agreement for a particular 
purpose, bound nobody to it except for that purpose. For 
every other, the paper is neither an admitted account, nor an 
account proved ; but the party, who now produces and relies 
upon it, for a new and collateral purpose, is bound to produce 
the proofs and vouchers in his own possession, just as the 
executor would have been, upon contest in the probate 
court. " Such is the decision of law, of equity, and of com- 
mon sense." [L. p. 37.] 

Nor does it make any difference that the party, who pro- 
vokes the question, is not the nominal party, who presented 
the account ; or that this nominal party is no longer alive to 
argue it. All the extrinsic proofs, which he then had, were, 
and are, we shall find, in Mr. Lowell's possession, or control ; 
and although Mr. Lowell says, while urging this ground of 
defence, that he is " not possessed of his [Mr. Boott's] famil- 
iarity with the facts," [L. p. 37.] yet, it will be seen, that, 
whenever it becomes necessary to interpose an explanation, 
he assumes, without scruple, to know all about them ; and 



142 

that, in truth, the advantage, as between him and me, on 
every point relating to the accounts, is, in respect both to 
knowledge and means of knowledge, altogether on his side. 
In point of honour and fair dealing, then, Mr. Lowell can 
never be allowed to protect himself from inquiry, by setting 
up the merely technical notion that I am estopped from ques- 
tioning the truth of this account ; nor to relieve himself from 
the production of his vouchers, by denying the compromise, 
and suggesting that a pro forma allowance of the account 
in the probate office has shifted the burden of proof ; nor 
to escape, from a dilemma of his own creation, by pretend- 
ing that the death of Mr. Boott has put it out of his power 
to explain. All this should have been thought of before 
he ventured to set up this account against me, as proof that 
I had made false accusations ; and I now challenge him to 
show, that it is, what he says it is, a triumphant vindication 
of Mr. Boott's character as a trustee, and proof of his good 
management of his father's estate, — ^which point, necessarily, 
involves the accuracy and completeness of the account itself. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE ACCOUNT. ITS EXTREME GENERALITY. WANT OF BOOKS 
AND VOUCHERS. 

This account, though once printed by me, and once by 
Mr. Lowell, in full, [B. App. p. 43. — L. p. 38.] must be ex- 
hibited anew, at least in its principal statements. But that 
is soon done. For, laying aside the amount of the inven- 
tory, which consisted entirely, as before shown, of real estate 
and a small amount of chattels, specifically bequeathed to the 
widow, and laying aside some small items of gain and loss 
in sales, resulting in a balance of $133 61 only, and also 



143 

a few minute items of expense for probate fees, amounting 
in the aggregate to ^23 only, the whole account consists 
of three items of debit, and two of credit, as follows : — 

JOHN WEIGHT BOOTT, EXECUTOE OF KIEK BOOTT. 

Dr. 

1. " Cash received from the firm of Kirk 
Boott & Sons, in part of the testator's 
interest in that copartnership, and in- 
vested in stocks to constitute the trust 
fund, as by his [the executor's] account 
settled at a probate court, May 11, 

1818," S116,783 95 

2. " Cash received of Boott & Lowell, in 
liquidation of the outstanding property 

of Kirk Boott & Sons," 69,389 99 



186,173 94 



8. " Income received on the trust fund for 
the widow, from March, 1818, to Nov. 
1844," 274,686 36 



Ck. 

1. " Cash paid to the heirs, nine in number, 

SI 0,000 each," 90,000 00 

2. '' Income paid to, or for account, and by 

order of, the widow," 274,686 36 



460,860 30 



364,686 36 



" Leaving in his [the executor's] hands to 
be accounted for," 96,173 94 

The small items, mentioned above, namely, 
$133 61 on the debit side, and S23 on 
the credit side, add to this balance 
(S133 61 less S23,) HO gj 

Making the actual cash balance, according , 

to the account, 96,284 55 

The amount of the inventory is also charged 

on the debit side, viz. 36,984 75 

But all the items in it, except the mansion- 
house, are also entered on the credit side, 
and they amount to 12,984 75 



The difference is 24,000 00 

This remains charged on the debit side of 
the account, and represents the appraised 
value of the mansion-house ; which was 
not property in the executor's hands, 
and is, as Mr, Lowell admits, immaterial 



144 

Brought over, $96,284 55 

to our discussion, [L. p. 39.] I add 
this to the above balance, only that the 
reader may see its conformity to the 
nominal balance of the account, as print- 
ed both by me, and by Mr. Lowell> 24,000 00 

which is 120,284 55 

The account then goes on to say :— 

" To meet which he [the executor] has the 

following property : 
39 shares in the Boston Manufacturing 

Co.— 
Of 18 shares cost SI 150 each, $20,700 00 
Of 21 shares cost $1300 each, 27,300 00 



48,000 00 

71 shares in the Merrimack Manufacturing 

Co. at cost, 71,000 00 
Mansion-house in Bowdoin Square, 24,000 00 
Stable in Bowdoin-street, deeded to exec- 
utor by J. W. Boott, in 1831, 2,500 00 



145,500 00 
Less cash halance due to the executor^^ 25,215 45 



[See the account, B. App. p. 43, and L. p. 38.] 120,284 55 

Since the mansion-house represents nothing in the execu- 
tor's hands, or for which he was accountable, it seems to be 
agreed, by Mr. Lowell and myself, that it may be deducted 
both from the debit side of the account, and from the mem- 
orandum of property at its foot. 

The balance of the account will then stand, as above stated, 
at $96,284 55 

The items of property above enumerated, 

amount to 145,500 00 

Deduct the mansion-house, here also, 24,000 00 



121,500 00 
" Less cash balance due to the executor," 25,215 45 



96,284 55 



This is the entire account, with the exceptions, I have men- 
tioned, of a number of items, which make a show of something, 
and come to nothing. There are no schedules annexed, or 



145 

referred to, of the particular receipts, or payments, which go 
to makeup the large sums spoken of; and there are no dates 
whatever, except the date of the inventory, and of the settle- 
ment of the former probate account, and the date, under 
which this present account was rendered. Three fifths of 
the account consist of the income, which is both debited 
and credited iii mass. It stands, equally, on each side, and 
does not affect the final balance. Laying aside this aggre- 
gate of income, for the purpose of looking at the components 
of the final result stated, the account may be still further 
simplified, and may be stated in round numbers, as follows : 

JOHN WRIGHT BOOTT, AS EXECUTOR OF KIRK BOOTT. 

Dr. 

1. For cash received from the old firm of 
Kirk Boott & Sons, before May 11, 
1818, and invested by him in stocks to 
constitute the trust fund, as by his pro- 
bate account settled at that date, $116,700 00 

2. For cash received from Boott & Low- 
ell, in liquidation of the property of Kirk 

Boott & Sons, 69,300 00 



186,000 00 



Cr. 
3, For cash paid to the nine heirs, $10,000 

each, 90,000 00 



" Leaving in his hands to be accounted for," 

*' To meet which he has," — i. e. the exec- 
utor has, in his capacity of executor, — 

39 shares of the Boston Manufacturing Co. 

which cost $48,000 00 

71 shares of the Merrimack Manufacturing 

Co., which cost 71,000 00 

And a stable, conveyed, in 1831, by J, W. 
Boott, personally, to himself as exec- 
utor, at 2,500 00 

121,500 00 

" Less cash balance due to the executor," 25,500 00 



$96,000 00 



Add to this the $275,000 of income said to have beeii re- 
ceived in the aggregate, and said to have been paid in the 
aggregate, and the reader has before him the whale substance 

» 19 



146 

of that, which ]\ir. Lowell avers to be a full, complete, and 
accurate account of ^h. Boott's twenty-seven years of ex- 
ecutorship ! 

I stated; formerly, three classes of objections to this paper : — 
1. Such as arise upon its face, or in connexion with the will, 
inventory, and probate papers. 2. Such as appeared by 
comparing it with facts, not of record, but positively known 
to me, and of which I stated the evidence. 3. Such as are 
found by comparing it with other probable facts, which I did 
not pretend to have positive knowledge of, but put forward 
as reasonable inferences from certain evidence, which I 
stated, leaving it to the other party, on whom the burden of 
explaining and proving this part of the case properly lay. to 
show, if he could, that my inferences Avere not well founded. 

The tendency of all these objections was. to show that 
the account could not be accepted, as a complete and accu- 
rate exhibition of all the transactions, nor even of the results 
of all the transactions, of the period, to which it relates ; 
and that no such balance, as it claims, really belonged to 
Mr. Boott. 

3Ir. Lowell has attempted an answer : — with what success 
let us now see. 

In the first place, on the face of the paper I objected, that 
this was jw accou}it, but a mere general statement of sup- 
posed results ; and such as gives no opportunity to an inter- 
ested party, by the particulars of sums and dates, to test 
their correctness, or to trace the property through the va- 
rious uses, which may have been made of it, to its final shape ; 
— and consequently, that it is impossible to ascertain, from 
the face of the paper, even if such facts as are stated in it be 
literally and strictly true, whether the executor has, upon 
that hypothesis, charged himself with all he was properly 
chargeable for, or not. Is not this so ? 

By such a paper, Mr. Lowell, who prepared it, in eflPect, 
merely says, — •• The executor received, more than twenty- 
six years ago, a sum of $116,700 from the old firm of Kirk 
Boott 6^ Sons, on account of the estate's interest in that firm, 
as appeared by his account at that time, in which he charged 



147 

himself with certain stocks, to that amount, purchased for 
the annuity funds, directed by the will. At some time 
after, — but when, how, and to whom, I leave you to guess, — 
he sold all those stocks ; some at a loss and some at a gain ; 
but he gained, in the whole, $133 61 by the sale, and this 
I now charge him with. What he did with that SUT.OOO, 
(the proceeds of the sale.) from that day to this, I do not 
state ; but you will see, at the end of this account, what 
property now stands in his name as executor." 

^' At another time, but when, or how, I cannot tell, he re- 
ceived another large sum, viz. $69,300, from another firm, 
called Boott & Lowell, which sum I consider as belonging 
to the estate, and charge accordingly. How Boott & Low- 
ell came to have it, or what the estate had to do with that 
firm, is not for you to know ; nor does the executor under- 
take to say, that this was the final result of the liquidation 
of the whole estate : it is enough for him to say, that the 
sum, I speak of, was received in liquidation, total or partial, 
as the case may be, of some outstanding property of the old 
firm of Kirk Boott & Sons, for which Boott & Lowell had 
become accountable." 

" At some or other times, the executor paid $10,000, in 
cash, to each of the heirs, making 890,000 : and this, sub- 
tracted from the receipts above mentioned, leaves 896,000." 

'^ He also received, in the way of interest and income 
upon all the sums and all the items of property, that have 
ever been in his hands, during, or within, these seven and 
twenty years, say $275,000 : but there is no use in telling 
when, or in what sums, or what particular property it all 
came from ; because I assure you, that, at some time or 
other, he paid it all away again, • to, for account, or by order 
of, the widow.' " 

" He now has on hand, to show for his investments, one 
hundred and ten shares in the Boston and Merrimack man- 
ufacturing companies, all standing in his name as executor, 
which cost $119,000, and a stable, which he sold to himself 
as executor, in 1831, for $2500, as his deed will show. 
How he came to hold so much property in this capacity is 



148 

immaterial ; for you will be pleased to observe, that the 
estate owes him, personally, a cash balance of more than 
$25,000. How that arose it is unnecessary to explain ; for 
you must perceive, that, if you take that sum out of my 
valuation of all the property held by him as executor, it will 
leave just $96,000, and that will exactly balance this ac- 
count." a. E. D. 

I submit to the reader, whether this is not a perfectly fair 
translation, into common language, of all the statements of 
this paper, (leaving out the real estate and specific be- 
quests as immaterial,) and whether these statements em- 
brace the ordinary characteristics of a trustee's account, or of 
an account sufficient for any business purpose whatever. 

Mr. Lowell has not condescended to furnish the slightest 
answer to this complaint of extreme generality and loose- 
ness. Indeed, how could he ? The thing is apparent ,• and 
there can be no good answer to it, except inability to state 
a better account. 

I attributed these defects, formerly, to the fact, that Mr. 
Boott had kept no accounts for more than twenty years, if he 
ever did, either with the estate as a whole, or with the par- 
ticular trust funds, which he was bound to set apart and dis- 
tinguish, or with the individual heirs, or with the annui- 
tants ; and that, with few exceptions, he had kept no vouch- 
ers for any thing. 

Was not this true ? Mr. Lowell, with some faint attempts 
to intimate the contrary, does not venture any positive as- 
sertion on the subject one way or the other ; and, upon the 
whole, this allegation must stand as tacitly admitted by his 
" Reply." Indeed, in one place, he says, he stated to Judge 
Warren, '' the deficiency of books and papers on Mr. Boott's 
part, so far as related to the earlier transactions;" [L. p. 35.] 
which statement might, with equal propriety, have been ex- 
tended to the latest of them, except such as may have passed 
through Mr. Lowell's own hands, and may therefore appear 
in his books. 

He further says, that he offered to exhibit to Judge War- 
ren, if he would appoint a tnne of meeting, at Mr. Lowell's 



149 

office, ''all the documents from which the accounts had 
been made up." [L. p. 35.] 

This offer I never before heard of; and Judge Warren 
states no such fact in his letter ; — although he does state the 
great confidence in this account expressed by Mr. Lowell, — 
than which, I am sure, nothing can be more probable. But 
such an examination of vouchers, Mr. Lowell says, ''Judge 
Warren considered to be unnecessary;" [L. p. 35.] as, of 
course, it was, under the proposal, then made, for a settle- 
ment on terms of compromise, which superseded all investi- 
gation. But what were "all the documents" then offered? 
Why does not Mr. Lowell produce them now ? — now that 
the question of the account, then waived, has arisen, and has 
become a subject of serious controversy ? How happens it, 
that he does not show a single one of these " documents," 
from which, he says, "the accounts had been made up? " 
If they were such as would positively prove the account in 
question, or any part of it, without at the same time contra- 
dicting other parts, or if they were such as would remove 
a single objection, without starting new ones, I think we 
may safely assume, that he would not have omitted them 
in a " Reply," designed to overwhelm his adversary. In- 
deed, since his professed object is to vindicate the memory 
of a friend, if he possessed such convincing proofs of the 
reality and justice of this account, as his supposed offer to 
Judge Warren would seem to intimate, I do not see how, in 
justice to that friend, he could have persuaded himself to 
withhold them from the pages of his " Reply." 

When he has a document, which he thinks clear to his 
point, does he ever fail to produce it ? When he has not, he 
contents himself with bold statement, on the weight of his 
own authority. 

One document, which he does produce for a different pur- 
pose, incidentally proves that, which I assert, respecting the 
total want of usual account books and vouchers. It is the 
letter of Charles G. Loring, Esq., used by Mr. Lowell as 
evidence on the question of insanity, but which speaks, by 
the way, of " the pressure of the circumstances, in which he 



150 

[Mr. Boott] was placed, by his inability to render detailed 
accounts." [L. p. 157.] So, the fact, that he, habitually, 
neglected the rendering and settling of accounts, is proved, 
by implication, in respect to transactions with the principal 
annuitant, under which head the account in question pur- 
ports to cover near $275,000 of receipts, and an equal amount 
of payments. The proof is, a document formerly printed 
by me, — namely, Mrs. Boott's Release, (executed, in London, 
before this, or any other, account was stated,) which recites, 
that, " by reason of the unlimited confidence always existing 
between us, the settlement of periodical accounts has not 
been thought necessary." [B. App. p. 38.] 

Mr. Lowell, it is true, in one passage, ventures to assert, 
inferentially, that Mr. Boott had detailed accounts in 1826. 
He refers to a passage in a letter from Mr. Kirk Boott, 
printed by me, in which, under the date of February 8^ 
1826, that gentleman says of his brother, ''as he is pre- 
paring to settle the estate and pay over the balances^ it is in- 
cumbent on me to come to a settlement with him." [B. App. 
p. 15.] 

Mr. Lowell's remark on that is, — " He therefore had ac- 
counts at that time." [L. p. 98.] 

Not feeling, myself, the force of that logic, I beg to ask, 
if he had books of account, or detailed accounts drawn out 
on paper, in 1826, what became of them ? No loss, either of 
books or papers, is pretended after that date. Mr. Lowell, 
indeed, makes a general assertion, in another place, that 
" documents necessary to enable him to state all the particu- 
lars of his accounts had been lost or destroyed ;" [L. p. 58] 
but, unluckily, he refers, in a note, to the particular occasion, 
on which he supposes such a loss to have arisen, and says, 
it was by the burning of " the books of Boott & Pratt, and 
of both firms of Kirk Boott & Sons," in a fire, which 
destroyed Mr. Boott's store. Now when did this happen ? 
Why, he himself tells us, it was " in April 1825," and, he 
believes, " did not apply to his papers and memorandums," — 
some of which, he well remembers, " were in the iron safe 
and were saved, though much discoloured." But he adds, 



151 

" the loss of the original books, will, however, account for 
Mr. Boott's inability to replace any papers lost or mislaid." 
[L. p. 59.] This is another conclusion, which does not seem 
to me very logical. But, at any rate, a fire in April, 1825, 
could not have consumed the accounts, which Mr. Lowell 
supposes Mr. Boott to have had in February, 1826 \ and I 
ask, again, what became of them ? 

Mr. Lowell can only venture to intimate, that they may 
have been voluntarily destroyed by Mr. Boott himself; or, 
at least, that no pains could, or should, have been taken 
to preserve them, smce they were useless, after the release 
obtained from the heirs, in 1833. [L. pp. 31. 59.] 

Is that likely ? What motive does the release afford for 
destroying or neglecting papers, which, if Mr. Lowell is right 
in his view of the accounts, would have clearly proved, — not 
that Mr. Boott was indebted to the other heirs at the time of 
that release, but — that they were indebted to him ? — and that 
a large amomit of property, held by or for him, apparently as 
executor, really belonged to hitriselfin his private capacity, and 
always had ? Did a release from the heirs of their claims on 
him supersede the evidence, by the supposed accounts, of his 
claims on thein, or on the property apparently theirs ? The 
supposition is not merely in itself without proof or lilcelihood, 
but, when connected with the accomit now in question, and 
with Mr. Lowell's other hypotheses, it becomes absurd. If 
Ml'. Boott had purposely destroyed his accounts, upon the 
ground that they were superseded by a release, it would 
be the best evidence in the world that they had exhibited 
a balance against him, which the release discharged, and 
the best evidence in the world that the account, now in 
question, cannot exhibit the true result of all his transactions 
as executor. 

But all these suggestions of loss and destruction are merely 
frivolous. It is plain, from such a statement, that no accoimts 
were kept by the executor, — no vouchers, ordinarily, taken. 
Besides, if they had formerly existed, but had been lost or 
destroyed, either accidentally or purposely, I should be glad 
to know what were '' all the documents, from which the 



152 

accounts had been made up," which Mr. Lowell says he 
offered to show to Judge Warren in 1844 ? And further, if 
the books of Kirk Boott & Sons were destroyed by the fire 
of 1825, there is no pretence that any such calamity has 
befallen the books of Boott & Lowell. Why does not the 
account give us the particulars of the executor's transactions, 
so far as they appear in those books ? Those books will be 
found, presently, to have embraced a very interesting period 
in the history of Mr. Boott's investments, and, it would seem, 
that they embraced, also, a record of all his cash dealings, 
whether for the estate's account, or his own, within that 
period. Why are we not furnished with those particulars ? 
Why are we told nothing from those books, except that, at 
some dateless time, the firm of Boott & Lowell paid over to 
the executor the very precise sum of f 69,389 99 ? 

Certain it is, that no account had ever been filed in the 
probate court, except that of 1818, admitted to have been a 
partial account, intended to cover only particular trust funds, 
and not to disclose the final interest of the heirs. Certain it 
is, that the business of the old firm, in which the estate was a 
partner, was required to terminate in March, 1818, and must 
have been finally wound up, and its results ascertained, with- 
in a few years after. Certain it is, that those results had never 
been stated in a probate account. Records prove that. I aver 
that they had never been stated in any private account, ren- 
dered to the heirs. Mr. Lowell does not pretend to deny the 
truth of that averment. I asserted, formerly, that there 
never was a final settlement with any one heir, nor any pay- 
ment made as a final payment, — none, at least, founded upon 
so small a sum as $10,000. No evidence to the contrary is 
produced by Mr. Lowell ,* nor does he venture, directly, to 
contradict the assertion. It is also now plain, that, except 
such accounts as may have been kept for their own business, 
and for Mr. Boott, by the mercantile firms, with which Mr. 
Boott was connected, the last of them terminating in 1824, 
no accounts, formal or informal, of the business of the estate, 
had been kept, and that no vouchers relating to it had been 
usually taken. It is equally plain, from the face of the paper, 



153 

which I now comment on, and from Mr. Loring's statement, 
that, in 1844, when it had become necessary for Mr. Boott to 
show something, that might answer for a discharge from his 
trust, he was utterly unable to exhibit a proper and intelli- 
gible accoimt, detailed or otherwise, of his transactions with, 
or for, the estate and its trust funds, from his neglect in keep- 
ing proper accounts and taking proper vouchers. • 

Now what is the question ? — Whether Mr. Boott had shown 
himself a competent and suitable trustee of this property, or 
not ; and I submit to every candid reader, that, — considering 
the natm-e, magnitude and amount of the transactions ; the 
length of time, through which they had run ; the number of 
persons interested ; the complex relations, in which Mr. Boott 
stood as surviving partner, executor, trustee, and guardian ; 
the necessary ignorance of women, minors, persons out of the 
country, persons not in business, and persons nowise connect- 
ed with the several firms, concerning the real transactions of 
a remote period; — the total neglect and omission to settle, ren- 
der, or keep, accounts, and usual documentary evidence, of 
complicated pecmiiary transactions, and the consequent ina- 
bility to make, at last, any more satisfactory statement of 
them than the paper offered, in 1844, as a probate account, 
running back to the time of the death of the testator in 1817, 
are conclusive evidence of unfitness for the trust, even if there 
were nothing else in the case. And we cannot but remark, 
that Mr. Lowell harms, instead of helping, his cause, when he 
midertakes to show, that, during a large part of the same pe- 
riod, Mr. Boott kept and rendered detailed accounts of his 
dealings as guardian of persons not of his own family, — ex- 
plaining to the mother of his wards, annually, as is stated, the 
true posture of their affair's, and building up for them, what 
Mr. Lowell esteems, a successful and brilliant result. Does 
not this fact tend to prove the existence of that idiosyncracy, 
attributed by me to Mr. Boott, which led him to look upon 
the property of his own family in a very different light from 
that of others in his hands, and to fancy that he had a right 
to deal with it as his own ? 

20 



154 

I do not mean to overlook, in these suggestions, the em- 
barrassment, which might well have arisen from the destruc- 
tion of the books of the two firms of Kirk Boott & Sons, 
if they were destroyed in 1835. But, would any trustee, of 
ordinary prudence and discretion, and of proper business 
habits, who had lost his books of account by such a casualty, 
have failedj either immediately to open new ones, and to 
record therein a statement, as exact, as circumstances would 
permit, of the then condition of the trust property in his 
hands, and to keep accurate accounts of it thenceforward, — 
or else to settle periodical accounts in the probate office, 
which might have dispensed with the necessity of books ? 
K we had, now, an exact statement of affairs as they stood 
immediately after the fire in 1825, (long before which time 
the business of the old firm must have been wound up,) 
and proper accounts after that^ how much of this discussion 
and how much of embittered controversy would have become 
superfluous, if not impossible ! 



CHAPTER XYIII. 

THE ACCOUNT. MR. LOWELL's DISCOVERY THAT IT CLAIMS ONLY 
$3700, INSTEAD OF $25,000, 

To return to the face of the account. I formerly remarked 
upon it, as follows : 

" The paper states in effect this — that all the money, which originally 
came to the hands of the executor, for investment, or distribution, as 
capital, belonging to the estate, was only about $186,000 

out of which he had distributed among the heirs, 90,000 

leaving only of the capital invested, or to be invested, 96,000 

That all the income he had ever received on this capital had been 
paid over " to, or for account, and by order of, the widow ;" so that 



155 

he had only to account, further, for the S9 6,000 of undistributed cap- 
ital. But the account then goes on to state, that, at the date of its 
rendition, he holds, in his capacity of executor and trustee, (besides 
the mansion-house,) property representing his own investments, as 
executor, to the amount of ^121,500 

and, since the undistributed capital, which remained, was 

only 96,000 

that he had invested, as executor, more than there was, by $25,500 
and consequently, that the estate owes him that money,, less some small 
items, which reduce it to the exact sum of $25,215 45." [B. p. 101.] 

*' This," I said further, '' is certainly a very extraordinary 
statement, if true ; and, if it does not prove insanity, must at 
least be set down for proof of mismanagement." [B. p. 101.] 

That I now repeat ; and couple with it the further remark, 
that ]\Ir. Lowell's answer to it is one of the boldest pieces of 
sophistry and fiction, that I ever saw put forth in print ; 
though, like all other sophistry and fiction, it has, of course, 
some verisimilitude, and some degree of plausibility, to make 
it imposing. 

According to the declaration of one of the jurors, (Dr. Pal- 
mer) Mr. Lowell stated, at the inquest, '' that Mr. Boott had a 
great aversion to figm-es, and to making out accounts ; and 
that he [Mr. Lowell] made out his accounts for him ; and on 
completing his accounts, he discovered that, instead of ]\Ir. 
Boott being indebted to the estate, the estate was debtor to 
him in the sum of $25,000." [B. p. 28.] But Mr. Lowell 
has, now, entirely eclipsed the brilliancy of that former dis- 
covery, by a new one. He has recently discovered that 
IMr. Boott never pretended to claim a debt of f 25, 000, 
but only one of $3700, — as, he says, the account shows. 
He devotes some space to this subject, and his concluding 
language is, '' All then that Mr. Boott ever claimed (Mr. 
Brooks, Mr. William Boott, and their learned counsel to the 
contrary notwithstanding,) was, that he had overpaid the 
heirs, $3700, and not, as they allege and doubtless believe, 
$25,000." [L. p. 40.] This, in a certain sense, which looks 
to the mere personal obligation of the heirs, or of some of 
them, arising out of an over-payment, and according to one 
form of analyzing the account, for the purpose of extracting 



156 

the amount of that personal obligation, may be argiimenta- 
tively, true ; — ^but the idea, intended to be conveyed, is not 
true, according to the natural and apparent sense of the exter- 
nal statements of the probate paper. Neither is it true, as 
matter of substance^ that Mr. Boott did not claim^ by this 
account, or rather that Mr. Lowell did not claim for him, 
$25,000 of the estate's property, as due, or belonging to, 
himself. This I hope to make clear. 

In the passage above extracted, I was commenting upon 
the mere /ace of the paper, and pointing out its palpable ab- 
surdity, as an actual account of the whole executorship from 
beginning to end, which it pretends to be. In that view, I spoke 
of it as indicating that the executor claimed to have invested 
more than there was, on his own showing, to invest, by 
$25,000, and as claiming, in consequence, $25,000 to be due to 
himself 

Did I, in this, either misstate, or overstate, the fair effect of 
its language ? What else is the natural meaning of the de- 
claration, that he (the executor) holds property to the amount 
of $145,000 00 

or, deducting the mansion-house at 24,000 00 



personal property, and a stable, to the amount of 121,500 00 
'^ less cash balance due to the executor, ^^ 25,215 45 

following, as this does, the statement of certain receipts and cer- 
tain payments, which, if true and complete on both sides, left 
$96,000 only of fmids for investment, instead of $121,500 ? 

Does it mean that Mr. J. Wright Boott has, or holds, in his 
own right, $121,500 of property, in corporate shares and a 
stable, by way of showing that he is able to respond for a 
balance of $96,000 ? Certainly not. Mr. Loweh does not 
pretend this. It is the accounting party, who speaks, — the ex- 
ecutor, as such, — and says, that he, virtute officii, holds that 
property. He shows, too, that he well miderstands the dis- 
tinction ; for, a part of that property, — the stable, — he describes 
as having been formerly conveyed from J. W. Boott, as a pri- 
vate person, to the executor, as an official ; — and, if we look, 
out of the account, to t\iQ fact, we find that, not only the sta- 



157 

ble, but the shares of manufacturing stock, were, really, at or 
before the time of accounting, conveyed to him as executor^ 
and that the same were conveyed by him, to his successor in 
the trust, as property of the estate ; and when the paper takes, 
by deduction from the aggregate amount of that property, a 
certain sum, under the words, '' less cash balance due to the 
executor," what does it assert, but that the sum, so taken out, 
is a cash balance due to him, constituting a charge upon the 
whole property, and that the estate^ or, which is the same 
thing, the property of the estate, owes him that amount of 
money ? 

Mr. Lowell, however, finds a recondite meaning in all this, 
which he explains to be, that so much of Mr. Boott's private 
property had happened, by circumstances, which he narrates, 
and which I shall presently deal with, to be placed erroneously 
in his name as executor ; — property, which had been pledged to 
Mr. Lowell for a debt of $25,000, and which he had himself, 
in 1844, reconveyed to Mr. Boott as executor^ in consequence 
of an arrangement made with me, in 1831, presently to be 
spoken of. He says, that this " cash balance, [of the ac- 
count,] is merely a specification of his [Mr. Boott 's] debt to 
me, [Mi\ Lowell] which had become mixed up with his ac- 
count as executor, in consequence of the interference of Mr. 
Brooks in 1831." [L. p. 43.] A very singular mode, certain- 
ly, this, of specifying a private debt of $25,000 from Mr. 
Boott to Mr. Lowell, to call it ''a cash balance due to the ex- 
ecutor,^'' from the estate, or property, he is accounting for ! 
The remark, however, serves at least to show that I was right 
in my supposition, when I first saw the account, as heretofore 
stated, that it was framed, — as it was framed, — with a view to 
provide for Mr. Boott the means of paying that debt to Mr. 
Lowell, without admitting and recording the fact, that the 
property of the estate was taken to pay it with. The filial 
cause of this " cash balance," is, as I rightly conjectured, Mr. 
LoivelVs debt. We are no longer left in doubt on this point ; 
for Mr. Lowell informs us, that 

"This form of in-esenting the account was a(loi)tcd by the advice of 
Mr. Loring. It yvas tliut gentleman's o})inioii, that, as pait of (lie as- 



158 

sets, although not belonging to the estate, did, nevertheless, stand in 
Mr. Boott's name as executor, it was proper and necessary, that they 
should be introduced into the account, to prevent question or confu- 
sion hereafter ; and that, therefore, Mr. Boott should claim the dif- 
ference, as a balance due to him, which he could at once apply to the 

PAYMENT OP HIS DEBT TO ME." [L. p. 42.] 

Now I doubt not that my friend Mr. Loring, being profes- 
sionally consulted, may, upon such a statement of facts as was 
presented to him, have advised this, or some such form, as 
the best means to effect the twofold object sought by his 
•^clients, — namely, to provide at once for Mr. Lowell's debt, 
and for the protection of Mr. Boott's reputation as a trustee. 
But, if the object was, " to prevent question or confusion 
hereafter," and at the same time to show that Mi\ Boott 
designed, by that account, to claim a debt of $3700 only, 
instead of $25,000, as Mr. Lowell has lately discovered, or to 
make, upon the face of the account, '' a specification" of the 
fact, that Mr. Boott owed Mx. Lowell $25,000, and of the 
alleged facts, that the heirs of the estate owed Mr. Boott 
$3700, and that some of the property, that stood in his name 
as executor, never in fact belonged to the estate, but was 
always his own, and that this property of his was to pay Mr. 
Lowell, — I think that this learned and upright lawyer, who, 
scorning all indirection and coverture, habitually means what 
he says, and knows, preeminently well, how to say what he 
means, would have found language more competent to express 
these various matters than the dark and mystical language 
of this account, — which seems admirably adapted to hide 
every one of them, or, like an ancient oracle, to speak in any 
sense, that the after occasion might require. 

Did that gentleman, (Mr. Loring,) understand, at the time 
he was consulted upon this account, that Mr. Boott was claim- 
ing $3700 only, instead of $25,000 ? Did Mr. Lowell himself so 
understand it ? If he did, it is very strange that he should 
never have expressed such an understanding of it till his book 
came out. How stands the evidence on this point, — as to 
the understanding all round ? In the first place, what says 
the paper ? '' Cash balance due to the executor, $25,215 45." 
That seems, p?H?na facie, plain enough. 



159 

In the next place, Judge Warren, that fair reporter of the 
settlement, what says he ? 

" Mr. Lowell, after consultation with Mr. J. TV. Boott, acceded to 
my proposition ; and as a consequence, Mr. B. has resigned the trust, 
Mr. Loring has been appointed trustee, and property to the amount 
of S100,000 or more, besides the purchase money of the house, 
(S46,000) has been transferred to him. The income of this goes to 
^Irs. Boott for her life, and upon her death the principal will be di- 
vided among the heirs. I should have stated that the amount above- 
named is subject to the payment of about SI 8,000 to Mr. J. W. Boott, 
the balance claimed as due to him 07i the account, after deducting 
dividends on Merrimack stock, received by him after the rendition of 
the account." [Ante p. 139.] 

On timiing to the after account, settled by Mr. Boott, Decem- 
ber 23, 1844, (the day of the completion of the arrangement,) 
we find the executor charging himself with sums received 
after November 18, (the date of the account now in question,) 
and that the amount of the Merrimack dividends, referred to 
by Judge Warren as so received, is stated at $7100. [See B. 
App. p. 52.] That is. Judge Warren, writing under the date of 
December 19, 1844, while the settlement was yet in progress 
towards completion, declares, that the amount to be handed 
over is " subject to the payment of about $18,000 to Mr. J. W. 
Boott, the balance claimed as due to him on the account^ after 
deducting dividends on Merrimack stock, received by him 
after the rendition of the account," which dividends we find 
to be $7100 ; and, of course, we perceive that Judge Warren 
understood, before those dividends were received, that " the 
balance claimed as due to him, [Mr. Boott] on the account," 
was about $25,000. 

Again, this after account, settled Dec. 23, charges the ex- 
ecutor with the balance of the preceding account, of Nov. 18, 
and with his new receipts, and prays to be allowed for the 
property transferred to the new trustee, namely, the thirty- 
nine shares of the Boston Manufacturing Company, and the 
seventy-one shares of the Merrimack Manufacturing Com- 
pany, and the stable, all passed over, in full, as property of 
the estate, together with a '' note of Wm. Lawrence, Esq. for 



160 

purchase money of estate in Bowdoin Square," (i. e. the man- 
sion-house, which had been sold,) $46,000 00 

'' From the proceeds of which," (so the account 
states) ^' the said trustee," (i. e. the trustee then 
newly appointed) " is to pay the cash balance due 
to the executor;' 25,215 45 

So, the inventory of the new trustee, after specifying this 
note of $46,000, says, " of which sum $25,215 45 belongs to 
John W. Boott, executor, being balance in his favour per 
account settled f' — and, accordingly, this sum is deducted 
from the face of the note, or, in other words, paid to Mr. 
Boott out of the proceeds of the mansion-house. 

These papers then, surely, speak, plainly enough, of real 
debty and real payment. [See the account and the inventory, 
B. App. pp. 53, 55.1 

A few days before this, on the 17th of December, 1844, 
(which was two days before Judge Warren's letter above cited,) 
I wrote a letter to Mr. Lowell, informing him that I did not 
intend to join with him, as one of the trustees under the will 
of Mr. Kirk Boott of Lowell, in any act, which might bind 
his heirs to the compromise, made for myself and wife per- 
sonally, but should prefer resigning my trust. A part of the 
language of that letter is, "I am not prepared to say, that, 
on a full, fair and just settlement of accounts, the executor is 
entitled to claim a balance of $25,000." [See letter, B. App. 
p. 50.] Does not that show, clearly enough, how I under- 
stood the claim at the time? Does it not show, also, that 
Mr. Lowell knew how I understood it ? If he understood 
otherwise, and that the real debt, intended to be claimed, was 
only $3700, why did he not say so then ? I have given an 
account of the interview, which followed, [B. p. 127.] and 
Mr. Lowell has commented upon it. [L. p. 193.] There is 
no pretence of any such notice. 

Again, a few days before this, and on the very eve of the 
compromise, Mrs. Brooks wrote a letter to her mother, under 
date of December 11, 1844, heretofore printed, in which is 
the following language : '' He [Mr. Lowell] told Mi\ Brooks, 
that neither he, nor Mr. Boott, had ever considered that debt of 



161 

$25,000 in any light but as a private one of Mr. Boott's ; and 
Mr. Brooks replied, — ' And yet a part of the estate was pledged 
to you as security for it, and Mr. Boott has paid you out of 
his mother's income more than $30,000 as interest' — which 
Ml-. Lowell could not deny." [B. App. 48.] " Mr. Boott has 
moreover taken advantage of our discharge, given him at a 
time of great distress and embarrassment, as an act of kind- 
ness, and not one of justice, to bring in his accounts in such 
a way as to 77iake it appear as if the estate was in debt to 
him $25,000, — -just the amount of his private debt to Mr. 
Lowell,^^ (fcc. [B. App. p. 49.] This is another proof of 
the contemporaneous understanding on our part. But this is 
not all. The letter went to Mrs. Boott, and was transmitted 
by her from London back to Mr. Lowell, as he admits. [L. p. 
205.] He had notice then, again, of what he now calls my 
^'delusion," [L. p. 204.] in supposing this accomit to be a 
claim of $25,000 as due to the executor /rom the estate. Did 
he seek to dispel it ? On the contrary, we had an interview 
soon after his receipt of that letter, in which he spoke of it 
with some excitement, and said much, but not one word to 
the effect, now suggested, that the account claims a debt of 
$3700 only, and that the property he held in pledge was Mr. 
BootVs own property. 

Finally, he testified, or stated, at the inquest, as four of 
the jurors say, that, by the accomits, as made up by himself, 
it appeared, '' that a clear balance was due from the estate to 
Mr. Boott of $25,000 ; "— '^ he discovered, that, instead of Mr. 
Boott being indebted to the estate, the estate was debtor to 
him, in the sum of $25,000 ; " — '^ he, Mr. Lowell, as a friend 
of the family, examined into the accounts, and found that 
there was a balance due from the estate to Mr. Boott of 
$25,000 ; " ''It was stated by him that the accounts were ex- 
amined, and a balance was found due to Mr. Boott of about 
$25,000 ;" — [See Declarations, of Andrews, Palmer, Learnard, 
Dyke, B. pp. 27 — 30.] all which, positively stated by every 
one of my witnesses, who speaks to the point at all, is contra- 
dicted by no one of Mr. Lowell's witnesses, as I have hereto- 
fore shown. To be sure, Mr. Lowell now says, in reference 



162 

to some of the statements of that period, that he could not 
have made such statements, because they were not true. 
[L. p. 8.] But the jurors, nevertheless, say that he did make 
them ; and, upon the particular point in hand, the account 
says : " Cash balance due to the executor, $25,215,45 ;" and 
the subequent probate papers show that this cash balance, 
claimed, was in fact allowed and paid by the new trustee, not 
out of any specific property, which the executor previously 
held, and might, possibly, have had a personal interest in, but 
out of the proceeds of the real estate sold, — thus charging it 
upon the general fund of the heirs, and treating it as a real 
cash debt, due from them, as heirs, to the executor, as such. 

In the face of all this, Mr. Lowell, to escape the pressure 
of an argument, resorts to the following ingenious mode of 
producing an impression on his reader that Mr. Boott never 
pretended to claim from the heirs, and that he never pretended 
to claim for him, more than $3700, instead of $25,000 ! 

I should premise that there are, obviously, two distinct 
questions involved. One is, whether, as matter of fact, ex- 
trinsic to the account, and independently of its statements, 
Mr. Boott was, at this time, the real owner of an equitable 
interest, to the extent of $25,000, or thereabouts, in certain 
stocks, which Mr. Lowell held in pledge for the private debt of 
that amount due from Mr. Boott to him. This will be dis- 
cussed in due time. The other question is, whether the ac- 
count CLAIMS a debt of $25,000 as due to Mr. Boott from the 
estate. 

I have already extracted, from my former pamphlet, [Ante, 
p. 144.] the view, which I j^rs^ took of the statements of the 
account, for the purpose of showing their glaring inconsist- 
ency and absurdity, in setting forth a balance of receipts 
beyond payments to the amount of $96,284 56 only, and then 
setting forth apparent investments, as executor, to the amount 
of $121,500, charged with the claim of an unexplained cash 
balance due to the executor of $25,215 45, which claim is, 
apparently, inserted by way of forcing the balance of property, 
to agree with the balance of alleged receipts and payments. 
That view I still think entirely correct. But, in the course of 



163 

subsequent remarks on the account, I inadvertently spoke of 
it as claiming this cash balance to be due, by reason of the 
executor's having distributed to the heirs so much money 
beyond his receipts. This, as a comment upon the allega- 
tions of the account, I readily admit was an oversight, and 
a mere error. It is very true, as Mr. Lowell states, [L. p. 
40.] that the accomit shows cash receipts to the 

amount of only $186,307 ^^ 

Less for probate fees and other small charges, 23 00 

186,284 m 
That, of this simi, the trust fund for the widow 

is not distributable till her death, 100,000 00 
Leaving distributable among the heirs, according 

to the admission of the accomit, only 86,284 ^^ 

And that Mr. Boott claims, by the same account, 

to have paid to the heirs, 90,000 00 

Making an alleged over payment of 3,715 45 

So that the whole cash balance, claimed, ($25,000,) is not 
stated, by the effect of the account strictly analyzed, to arise 
from over-'payment to the heirs ; but about $3700 of it appears, 
constructively, to have been claimed on that ground, and the 
residue for some other cause, which the account does not 
explain. 

Now for Mr. Lowell's argument. He selects, for his com- 
ment, not the passage above extracted from page 101 of my 
pamphlet, with which I began my examination of the account, 
but one from page 116, which is as follows : — '' The account 
alleges, in effect, that, by reason of cash payments to the heirs^ 
beyond what was due to them^ by $25,000, that amomit of 
the property, invested and held by Mr. Wright Boott as execu- 
tor, belongs to him personally." Taking this as if it were 
my original and main proposition, concerning the superficial 
absm'dities of the account, he proceeds to demonstrate its 
error. He boldly sets forth the entire account, as if it were a 
most unexceptionable document, challenging investigation. 
He next analyzes its statements, in the manner above shown, 
to produce a claim of $3700 only for over-payment ; and lie 



164 

repeats the demonstration in another form to make it tell. Of 
course, he has easily overthrown my above cited position, in 
the mind of every reader. He then proceeds to make certain 
statements of fact, (which I v/ill presently consider,) out of 
the account, for the purpose of showing, that, when he re- 
conveyed to ]\Ir. Boott, as executor^ the shares, which he 
held in pledge, he '' conveyed to the estate more than it 
was entitled to receive by precisely $25,000." [L. p. 42.] 
He then goes on as follows : 

" Thus far the mistake of Mr. Brooks is an innocent and not very- 
unnatural one. When, however, he proceeds to draw inferences bear- 
ing hard on Mr. Boott's reputation and on mine, carelessness on his 
own part can hardly be pleaded in justification. 

" Thus, when he says of Mr. Boott, (p. 101) that the account shows, 
* that he had invested, as executor, more than there was, by S25,500, 
and that consequently the estate owes him that money, less some small 
items,' and adds, ' This is certainly a very extraordinary statement, 
if true ; and if it does not prove insanity, must at least be set down 
for proof of mismanagement :' — 

" Or when he says of me, (p. 87) ' Mr. Lowell had, before the 18th 
of November, 1844, induced him [Mr. Wright BoottJ to adopt a form 
of account, prepared by Mr. Lowell himself, exhibiting an apparent 
balance of $25,000, and a fraction, as due from his father's estate to 
him .*' — 

" Or when he allows Mrs. Brooks to say, ( App. p. 49) that her 
brother has brought in his accounts ' in such a way as to make it 
appear as if the estate was in debt to him $25,000, just the amount of 
his private debt to Mr. Lowell :' — 

" Or when he represents the passing of the account as so materially 
altering the state of Mr. Wright Boott's property, as to increase the 
amount receivable by Mrs. Ealston as residuary legatee, from $16,000 
to $40,000, and holds me therefore responsible to prove a new pub- 
lication of his will by Mr. Boott : — 

" When Mr. Brooks brings all these various and most serious 
cliarges, as corollaries from the balance exhibited in the account, he 
cannot shelter himself behind his own ignorance and incompetency to 
understand accounts. These qualities may be pardonable in them- 
selves ; but a gentleman, afflicted with them, has no right to convert 
them into weapons against his neighbour." [L. p. 43, 44.] 

Now every one of these propositions of mine, all preceding 
the erroneous passage, which Mr. Lowell had fastened on, and 
which propositions he treats, by position and context, as if they 
had been corollaries from that error, I maintain are perfectly 
just and true, and no wise dependent upon the proposition shown 



165 

to be erroneous. Those, which speak of the claim, as a claim 
that the estate owes Mr. Boott $25,000, are dependent only 
upon the natural meaning of the language of the account, as 
it had always before been understood and interpreted by all 
parties concerned, including Mr. Lowell, and as every reader 
may now interpret it for himself. They have no relation to 
the question what that claim \y^^ founded upo7i, and whether 
it proceeded from alleged over-payments to the heirs, or from 
some other' cause. And the proposition referred to, respecting 
the increase of Mrs. Ralston's legacy from $16,000 to |40,000, 
depends, not upon any statement of the account, nor upon any 
reasoning of mine concerning its mere statements, but entirely 
upon this extrinsic matter of fact ^ viz., whether, previously to 
the stating of that account, $25,000 of Mr. Boott's private 
property was really mingled loith property of the estate^ in 
certain shares of manufacturing stock, lying under pledge to 
Mr. Lowell. If there was no such mixed property in those 
shares, which I shall presently show, then it is certain that 
the settlement of that account, in the form, in which it was 
stated, increased Mr. J. Wright Boott's property and Mrs. Ral- 
ston's legacy by that amount, giving to his will an effect, that 
was never intended at the time it was made. Yet, Mr. Lowell, 
having gained an advantage by overturning an erroneous po- 
sition of no importance to the main inquiry, and having pre- 
sented that proposition as if it were, itself, the very question, 
and as if the other positions, above mentioned, all rested upon 
it, continues to hold up that false idea throughout his book ; 
and returning, towards the end of it, to my remarks on the 
responsibility he takes in refusing to produce the letter, which, 
he says, enclosed and republished Mr. Boott's will, he repeats, 
that '' the whole criticism, is founded on that old delusion, 
that Mr. Boott's accounts show a balance due to him of 
$25,000 /or advances made to the heirs, whereas they show 
only $3700 so advanced." [L. p. 203.] 

Now this may be all very well as a specimen of the art of 
fencing ; but it was not wise to venture upon it in print. It 
is a device too easily detected ; and, when detected, seems 
rather to show a thirst for victory on any terms, than a desire 



166 

" to elicit the truth ;" — Avhich, as before remarked, lies in mat- 
ters of fact, quite beside the statements of the account, or 
my reasoning upon them, whether right or wrong. 

To call the language of the account any thing else than a 
claim of $25,000 for a deht^ alleged to be due from the estate 
to the executor, is an affront to common sense, and the peo- 
ple's English. To dispute whether the account asserts this 
debt to have arisen from over-payment, or over-investment, or 
an accidental confusion of property, is a mere (Quibbling about 
terms, or about an immaterial fact. The only substantial 
•point of inquiry is, whether this apparent cash balance of the 
account is a real one ; or, in other words, whether Mr. Boott 
had, in truth, that amomit of his own property^ lying in the 
shares, which Mr. Lowell conveyed to him, as executor, for 
the pm'pose of enabling him to settle his probate accomits. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE ACCOUNT. ITS PRETENCE OF AN EQ^UAL DISTKIBUTION OF 
),000. CASE OF THE MINORS. 



Before taking up the main question of Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
supposed ownership of $25,000 in the property transferred to 
him as executor, (an inquiiy, which involves a range of facts 
not apparent from the accomit,) let me, briefly, dispose of Mi*. 
Lowell's answers to certain other objections, arising upon the 
face of the paper, connected with the will, and with the 
former probate account of 1818. 

I objected, that the accomit, now in question, if true and 
complete, shows over-payment to the heirs, (I was misled, by 
its language, only as to the amount^) and that it shows a mis- 
appropriation of trust funds in making such over-payment ; 



167 

and this, I alleged, was without the consent or knowledge of 
the heirs, who were thus allowed to eat up, in ignorance, so 
much of their reversionary interest, under the idea that they 
were only using their share of present divisible property, and 
leaving their reversionary share, unimpaired, to retire upon at 
a future day. [B. p. 106.] 

To this we have no answer. Indeed over-payment, to the 
extent of more than $3700, is expressly admitted, as we have 
just seen ; and Mr. Lowell's own figures show, that Mrs. 
Boott's undistributable trust fund was reduced by it, from 
$100,000, to little more than $96,000. [L. p. 40.] 

Was not that mismanagement ? 

Li addition to this, I showed, from the account of 1818, 
that its foot exhibited the probable original formation of a 
trust fund, designed to cover the several trusts for Mrs. Boott, 
and for the two sisters of the testator, amounting, together, to 
$111,000, and upwards. The funds, to cover these several 
trusts, ought to have been kept separate and distinct, but 
appear to have been blended in one. That they were so, 
Mr. Lowell admits. [L. p. 24.] All the investments of that 
fund are shown, by the account in question, to have been 
afterwards sold, producing about $117,000 ; and I objected, 
that no account whatever is given of the reinvestment of that 
sum, nor of the changes that occurred in its employment, 
except as they may be inferred from the fact that certain 
property is stated, twenty-six years after, to be in the execu- 
tor's hands, amounting, at cost, to $121,500, subject to an 
alleged cash balance due to him, whereby it is reduced to 
little more than $96,000, — the fimd of $11,000 for the two 
sisters having thus wholly disappeared, together with a por- 
tion of the fund for the widow, without any account of the 
time, manner, or cause of their disappearance, unless dis- 
tribution, at some time, is to be inferred ; — which, if it were 
the fact, I aver to have been unknown to the heirs. 

To this there is no answer, and the fact is plain. Is that 
due accounting, or proper management ? 

I further stated that, — 



168 

"Another mismanagement, equally apparent on the face of the ac- 
count, lies in the statement that $10,000 exactly, and no more, was 
paid to each of the heirs. If so, it was a great injustice to the minors, 
and directly contrary to the provisions of the will. According to the 
will, the shares of those who were of age, in the divisible property, 
were payable in March, 1818. But the shares of the minors were to 
be placed out at interest and paid to them, when they should come of 
age. The share of the youngest child, (Mr. William Boott) by accu- 
mulation of compound interest, would have nearly, or quite, doubled at 
the time he was entitled to receive it. Yet tlie account states, that 
all the heirs were paid just alike, and precisely $10,000, at whatever 
time it was payable ; and does not state that the shares of the minors 
were placed out at interest for their benefit ; but, on the contrary, 
•^oes state, that all the income of all the moneys and investments of 
the executor, from the beginning to the end of his executorship, was 
' paid to, or for account and by order of, the widow ;' and though he 
speaks of it as 'income received on the trust fund for the widow^ he 
gives no account of income received from any other source, although 
it is plain, that large sums of money, beyond the $100,000 appropri- 
ated to the widow, must, at times, have been in his hands, and some 
of them for years, during the minority of the owners." [B. p. 106.] 

To this a partial answer is attempted. Mr. Lowell denom- 
inates this charge, against Mr. Boott, " strange recklessness ;" 
because, he says, although it was provided in the will^ that 
the shares of the minors should accumulate, this was altered 
by the codicil^ which provides " that the clothing and educat- 
ing of each of them shall be charged to him or her by my said 
wife Mary, and be allowed to her." To this the ''Reply" 
adds, '' to any one familiar with the expensive habits of 
the family, the idea of any accumulation from savings on the 
interest of $10,000, if the expenses of the minors were charge- 
able to them, is preposterous. No one knows this better than 
Mr. Brooks." [L. p. 65.] 

Now to this I might reply, in Mr. Lowell's style, that " to 
any one familiar with the habits of the family, the idea of 
any specific charge having been made to the minor children ,- 
for their personal expenses, is preposterous. No one knows 
this better than Mr. Lowell." 

But, I will simply content myself with averring, that no 
such charges were ever made to any of them, while members 
of their mother's household, either by her, or by Mr. J. Wright 



169 

Boott ; and that no account was ever kept with any one of 
them. If this be not so, let Mr. Lowell show the contrary 
by '' all the documents " in his possession. 

Besides, Mr. Lowell overshoots his mark, greatly, in sug- 
gesting that the estates of the minors were made chargeable, 
by the testator, for their share of "the expensive habits of the 
family," if, by that, he means general maintenance, according 
to the style of living in Mrs. Boott's establishment. The pro- 
visions of the will, — by which I mean, of com'se, the will and 
codicil, taken together, — are very distinct on this point. By 
the original will, the interest of the $100,000 fund was given 
to Mrs. Boott, not only for her own support, but, expressly, for 
" the support of our minor children^ and for the educating of 
them, until they each shall arrive at the age of twenty-one 
years ;" and the proportional share of each minor, in the 
general estate, was directed ''to be placed out at interest 
on good security," until they should respectively come of 
age, when it was to be paid to them. By the codicil, it is 
provided, that, until May 19, 1818, (the appointed day of 
distribution,) '' my wife and family are to be maintai7ied, 
clothed, and the children educated, in the same manner as 
during my life-time, the expenses of which are to be charged 
to my estate f^ and after that date, the provisions of the orig- 
inal will are so far altered by the codicil, that, instead of 
throwing the entire expense of the minors upon the widow's 
income, it is provided, in the language before quoted, — not that 
she should be relieved from the expense of general mainte- 
nance, but — ' ' that the clothing and educating of each of them 
shall be charged to him or her by my said wife Mary, and 
be allowed to her." This was, of course, optional with her ; 
and, if she made such charges, they were to " be allowed to 
her.'''' And, in respect to the placing of the shares at interest 
on good secm'ity, the will is only so far modified by the cod- 
icil, that the executor, or guardian, is authorized, in case the 
testator's sons should carry on the old mercantile business on 
their own account, to lend to them the portions of the minors, 
'' they paying interest for the same." [See the Will and 
Codicil, B. App. pp. 5-9.] 



170 



The widow, therefore, was still left hound to support her 
minor children, with a right to charge, if she pleased, their 
clothifig and school bills, — which, I venture to say, she never 
did, — and the shares of the minors were still to be at interest, 
and accumulating, subject to that contingent charge. Sup- 
posing, for argument's sake, such charges to have been made, 
and supposing the share of each child in the divisible estate 
to have been $10,000 only, as Mr. Lowell contends, instead of 
$20,000, as I contend, will Mr. Lowell pretend, that, during 
the entire minority of these children, (the youngest being 
about twelve years of age at the father's death,) their expenses 
of this description, measured by the scale of from twenty to 
thirty years ago, amounted to any thing approaching $600 a 
year each ? Will he say, that there was no room for accumu- 
lation from the interest on $10,000, after paying such bills ? 
Or, that the expenses of all, boys and girls, of different ages, 
were just alike ? If not, how happens it, that when they came 
of age, successively, they should all be found entitled to just 
the same sum 7 Not only so, but just the same sum with those 
heirs, who were adults at their father's death, and for whom no 
accumulation was directed ? I submit to the reader that the 
objection is not answered ; — that there is no account given, 
even by implication, of interest, not payable to the widow, 
upon considerable sums, which must either have lain in the 
executor's hands, for years, or should have been lent by him on 
interest ; — and that the payment of $10,000 and no more to 
each heir, supposing that to have been the original distribu- 
tive share, was a great injustice to some of them, and a direct 
violation of the spirit and letter of the will. 

Was there no mismanagement in all this ? And is not this 
a necessary inference from the account ? 

Another objection related to the allegation of the account 
that $90,000 had been distributed among the nine heirs, in 
full, as Mr. Lowell asserts, of their respective shares, rever- 
sions excepted. As this is nearly connected with the subject 
I have been just discussing, it may well enough be noticed 
here, although it involves the statement of some facts, not 
shown by the probate records. 



171 

I formerly declared my belief, that much more than $90,000 
had been permitted to go to the use of the heirs ; but not with 
any equality, nor as a regular distribution. [B. p. 109.] I ad- 
mitted, that, in my own case, I had received from Mi*. J. 
Wright Boott his personal promissory note for the exact sum 
of $10,000, which note I, afterwards, exchanged for Mr. Kirk 
Boott's, at the request of that gentleman, and heard no more 
of. [B. p. 35.] The note of Mr. Kirk Boottj which I received 
in that exchange, was paid, many years after, in the course 
of the settlement of his estate ; and, thus, so much of the 
sum due to Mrs. Brooks from her father's estate was, at last, 
realized. The note of Mr. J. Wright Boott, which I so ex- 
changed, had been handed to me, by him, Dec. 29, 1823, 
expressly as a payment on account, and not in full, of Mrs. 
Brooks's then distributive share. This fact, my receipt, in 
Mr. Lowell's possession, if he would have the goodness to 
produce it, would undoubtedly prove. 

Payments of like amount were made, a year or two before, 
to two others of the heirs^ (Mrs. Lyman and Mrs. Ralston,) 
whose husbands gave receipts, also, which Mr. Lowell might 
produce, if he would ; and which, if produced, would be 
found, I doubt not, to exclude, like mine, the idea of a final 
settlement, or of payment in full. 

This branch of the subject, involves the question, how much 
a distributive share really was, or was then represented to be. 
I shall have occasion to discuss it more fully hereafter. At 
present, I only undertake, in passing, to say, in the face of 
this allegation of the account, and of Mr. Lowell's bold asser- 
tions, that no one heir ever received the sum of $10,000, as a 
payment, in full, of his or her distributive share of the estate, 
reversions excepted. 

If I am wrong, how easy is it for Mr. Lowell to convict me 
of my error ? He pretended, in his interviews with Judge 
Warren, that this account '' could be sustained throughout," 
beyond any possibility of question ; [See Judge Warren's Let- 
ter, ante, Ch. 16.] and he pretends, now, in his pamphlet, 
[L. p. 208.] that Mr. Boott would not have had the least diffi- 
culty in proving it, if its opponents had not backed out 



172 

from the contest. Now, if there was any one thing in it 
easily -piovesible, p7^ovided it loere true^ it would be this final 
distribution. Every heir, who received his $10,000, would, of 
course, have given his receipt. The receipts, for every such 
payment, are, of course, in the possession of Mr. Lowell, as the 
executor of Mr. Boott. I challenge him to produce them. 
Let us see the evidence of this pretended distribution and set- 
tlement. All the papers, needful to establish that final pay- 
ment, if there were any such final payment, must be few, 
short, easily printed, and perfectly conclusive in their char- 
acter, one way or the other. Why does not Mr. Lowell 
simply show these papers, instead of writing an elaborate 
argument to prove, by indirection, that $10,000 apiece must 
have been distributed to the heirs, and that this was all, or 
more than all, they were entitled to receive ? If he can 
produce an original receipt, in full ^ from any one heir, for his 
or her distributive share of all the estate, reversions excepted, 
made upon receiving from the executor sums to the amount 
of $10,000, or its equivalent, and no more, — or, if he can 
produce any form of receipt, which expresses, that, in consid- 
eration of $10,000 paid, in the aggregate, and no more, the 
executor is discharged from all further claim, except for the 
reversion of the particular trust fimds, I shall be obliged to 
admit myself mistaken on a most material point. If he 
neither produces such a paper, nor shows some more satis- 
factory excuse for the omission than yet appears, he must ex- 
pect to have his pretence of an equal distribution of $90,000, 
in settlement with the heirs, treated with no more respect 
than it deserves. 



173 



CHAPTER XX. , 

THE ACCOUNT. ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE INEQ,UALITY OF DISTRI- 
BUTION. CASE OF MR. WILLIAM BOOTT. 

The account claims that a capital of exactly $90,000 had 
been equally distributed among the nine heirs, and that pre- 
cisely $10,000 had been paid to each of them in full settle- 
ment for his or her distributive share, except in the reversion 
of Mrs. Boott's annuity fund, which, of course, could not be 
distributed in her life-time. This alleged equal distribution 
I aver to be an unfounded pretence. 

To show that, without adverting, unnecessarily, to the 
affairs of other members of the family, (which I may, at last, 
be driven to by Mr. Lowell,) I thought myself, formerly, at 
liberty to state, among other proofs, that, in my own case, 
besides the f 10,000 note, Mrs. Brooks received the complete 
furnishing of a house, at her marriage. Mr. Lowell adopts 
the statement. [L. p. 53.] I might have stated, by way of 
contrast, that Mrs. Lyman, who was married on the same day, 
received no such outfit. But I pray Mr. Lowell to note, that 
I do not now state this on her authority. I state it as a 
matter of family history, well known to me at the time, if not 
to Mr. Lowell. 

I also adverted to the case of Mr. William Boott, because it 
was mentioned in a letter, which, from its connexion with 
Mr. Lowell, I felt called upon to print. I mentioned this as 
the case of an heir, who had never received, in payment of his 
patrimony, " any specific sum, though it is true, that a con- 
siderable expense must have been incurred on his account, 
before he was of age, while travelling in Europe, of which 
no account was ever kept or rendered, and for which there 
was no voucher." [B. p. 55.] 

'' This charge," Mr. Lowell says, " rests of course on Mr. 
William Boott's personal knowledge ;" [L. p. 61.] and he, con- 



174 

sequently, makes it an excuse for a personal attack on that gen- 
tleman, in matters, which have very little relation to the sub- 
ject in hand, accompanied by insinuations, manifestly in- 
tended to harm his general reputation, so far as Mr. Lowell's 
authority may go, for the purpose of detracting from his 
credit as a witness. 

Now, I have already stated, that Mr. William Boott is ac- 
countable for nothing, in my former pamphlet, but that por- 
tion of the narrative, which is expressly declared in it to rest 
upon his authority ; and that is confined, strictly, with I 
believe one single exception, which I shall presently notice, 
to facts bearing, exclusively, on the question of insanity. As 
to the circumstances of Mr. William Boott's absence in Europe, 
at an early period of his life, they were all very well known 
in the family at the time. Mr. J. Wright Boott travelled 
with him there, the first year, as Mr. Lowell informs us. 
[L. p. 61.] Shortly before the return of Mr. J. Wright Boott, 
Mrs. Boott made a visit to Europe, and was absent about two 
years, mostly living, or travelling, in company with Mr. 
William Boott. In 1824-5, 1, also, was in Europe, with Mrs. 
Brooks, and, when in Paris, we lived in the house with 
Mrs. Boott, and Mr. William Boott, and Dr. Francis Boott 
and his wife and children, where we all made one family. 
After our return, family correspondence and intercourse kept 
me, of course, well advised of Mr. William Boott's move* 
ments, occupations, and mode of life, abroad. My former 
statements, on that score, required no information from him. 
It was equally well known to me, that Mr. J. Wright Boott 
kept no accounts, and took no pains to keep vouchers for 
these matters of family expense ; and I had known, for 
years, speaking in common parlance, though it may not have 
been the strict personal knowledge required in a court of law, 
that Mr. William Boott had never been settled with by his 
brother, nor received any thing as a specific payment on 
account of his patrimony. He had, besides, been consulted 
by me on a draft of a petition to the judge of probate, which, 
when the executor's account was presented, in 1844, I pre- 
pared, as a paper to take counsel upon. The paper was in 



175 

fact never presented, nor even signed ; but it purported to 
object to this item of the account on the ground above-men- 
tioned. I had no occasion, in the preparation of my pamphlet, 
for any information from Mr. William Boott on these heads, 
and in fact had none. Mr. Lowell's excuse, therefore, for 
publishing matters personal to Mr. William Boott, such as 
they are, rests upon an assimiption equally gratuitous and 
unfomided. 

But how does Mr. Lowell deal with me in the matter ? 

He begins by stating, that '^ it is alleged [by me] in distinct 
terms and in various forms, that that gentleman [Mr. William 
Boott] never received any thing from his father'' s estate.^'' 
[L. p. 60.] Is it so ? We shall see. 

He then says, that, " in the memorial prepared for present- 
ation at the probate office, by Messrs. Edward Brooks and 
William Boott, [meaning the draft above mentioned, which I 
put into the hands of counsel, but which was never signed 
by any body,] it is expressly said, and if my memory serves 
me, without qualification, that Mr. Wright Boott had never 
paid his brother any thing towards a settlement^ [L. p. 60.] 
The Italics, here, are Mr. Lowell's, — notwithstanding his gen- 
eral objection to that form of type. 

This only shows that Mr. Lowell's memory, sometimes, 
serves him no better than he thinks mine serves me. I ex- 
tract, from the memorial, the passage he refers to. 

" The said William Boott on his part says, in regard to this item, that 
he has never hQ&a. furnished with any account by the executor of any 
kind whatever, nor has he ever received the sum of $10,000, nor any- 
other sum, for, or on account of, a settlement with the said executor, as 
one of the heirs." 

This paper, which Mr. William Boott neither contributed 
to make, (as Mr. Lowell would have his reader believe,) nor 
even adopted, (unless allowing me to submit it to counsel, 
for advice, can be so construed,) does not assert, as Mr. Low- 
ell pretends, that this heir had never received any thing, 
which may have proceeded from the estate^ or that his brother 
had never j9aic? any thing for him, which, upon a just settle- 
ment of his account as an heir, might not, properly, have 



176 

been charged against his share of the common patrimony, 
and so have gone " towards a settlement ;" — but that, which 
it asserts, is to the effect that there never had been a settle- 
onent ; that the executor had never stated his account with 
him as an heir ; and that he had never received $10,000, or 
any other specific sum, intended and known to be a payment 
of^ or in settlement for , his share of the inheritance ; which 
is a very different thing. And the latter is the just effect of 
what I said on this subject in my pamphlet. 

Mr. Lowell, however, (who has no more respect for context, 
and order of remark, than he says I have for chronology,) has 
an ingenious way of beginning at the wrong end of a series 
of statements, and turning them inside out, so as to make them 
appear to serve a purpose, for which they were not intended. 
Some instances of this sort of unfairness have already been 
noticed. Another occurs here. 

He begins, as above shown, with the general assertion that 
I had alleged, in distinct terms and various forms, that Mr. 
William Boott " had never received any thing from his father^ s 
estate.^^ He follows that with his " reminiscence " of the 
memorial, as alleging '' that Mr. Wright Boott had neYeY paid 
his brother any thing, towards a settlement." Next comes- an 
extract from a letter of Mrs. Brooks to her mother, printed in 
my Appendix, which used the words, '' when William has not 
been paid any part of his portion," without stating the tacit 
exception, well known to Mrs. Boott, of the expenses incurred 
for him in Europe. He then proceeds to cite, in support of 
his general assertion concerning my allegations, a single pas- 
sage, from page 84 of my pamphlet, which, taken by itself, 
might, perhaps, bear that construction. I was then comment- 
ing on Mr. J. Wright Boott 's will, and asked this question : — 
^' In the division of the bulk of his property, why should Mr, 
William Boott, the brother, of whom he had once been particu- 
larly fond, to whom he had paid nothing on account of the 
$20,000, or more, which should have come to him from his 
fathers estate, and who had generously released him, in his 
distress, from all claim on that account, have been wholly cut 
off? " Mr. Lowell picks out, from this sentence, for the pm- 
pose of citation, the words which I have Italicised above. 



177 

That is, he selects, from a sentence, one of several circum- 
stances in it, all of which had been previously explained, and 
are here alluded to, in passing, as matters, with which the 
reader has been already made familiar, and he treats that inci- 
dental allusion as if it were the subject of the sentence, and 
X\iQ principal proposition laid down by me on that subject. 

Having thus smuggled a false idea into the mind of the 
reader, he goes on, with great appearance of candour, to 
admit that there are passages, in which '' this broad assertion 
is, prudently and in anticipation of my reply, qualified as fol- 
lows :" [L. p. 60.] and he then quotes, from page 109, a part of 
another sentence, in these words, — ''unless allowing him to 
spend a great deal of money, while a boy, in Europe, is to be 
deemed a payment on account of his capital, while members 
of the family, at home, were living at the general expense of 
the estate." And, finally, he quotes, from page 55, the sen- 
tence, which occurred ^rs^ in my pamphlet, on this subject. 
Here I was commenting, directly, on the claim of the account 
for a pretended equal and final distribution, by the payment 
of $10,000 to each of the heirs, in settlement for their shares ,• 
and, in reference to that, I stated, that Mr. William Boott 
" never received any specific sum, though it is true that a 
considerable expense must have been incurred on his account 
before he was of age, while travelling in Europe, of which 
no account was ever kept or rendered, and for which there 
was no voucher." This was my original statement of the 
case ; it is, to the lett6r, a perfectly true statement ; and all 
the subsequent passages, which Mr. Lowell quotes, either 
referred, or alluded, to that, and necessarily carried with them 
its qualification, even if I did not repeat it, (as I believe I 
usually did,) whenever I spoke of the non-payment to Mr. 
William Boott. Yet, says Mr. Lowell, '' it is alleged, in dis- 
tinct terms and various forms, that that gentleman had never 
received any thing from his fathefs estate ".' And it is made 
a subject of complaint, by Mr. Lowell, that this charge, with- 
out the qualification, had been made in Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
life-time, " in letters not communicated to him, and intended 
to affect the opinion of his mother " I [Ij. p. 60.] As if 



178 

she did not know, as well as Mr. J. Wright Boott, the circum- 
stances of her youngest son's long absence in Europe ! — espe- 
cially when she had lived there with him the greater part 
of two years ! Mr. Lowell, by the way, speaks, above, of 
^'■letters " written with that view, and containing " this broad 
assertion," that nothing had been paid to Mr. William Boott, 
without the qualification. If it had been an object for Mr. 
Lowell to confine his statements to a resemblance of the 
truth, he would have said " a letter ;^^ for the only one, that 
I am aware of, containing such a statement, is the letter from 
Mrs. Brooks to Mrs. Boott, printed by me, and referred to 
above. The occasion of its being written will appear by- 
and-by. 

As to the complaint, that my draft of a memorial for the 
judge of probate, '^ since Mr. Bootfs deaths at leasts has been 
put in cii'culation," [L. p. 60.] that is simply a mistake. It 
was, before that event, shown, in confidence, to my counsel, 
and to Mr. William Boott. It was, afterwards, shown, in like 
confidence, to some very particular friends, in answer to their 
inquiries, caused by reports, which took their origin, I believe, 
from Mr. Lowell. But this, also, was before the death of 
Mr. Boott. I have no recollection, or belief, that any one 
has seen it since his death, except my counsel. At any rate, 
it is not true, that it " has been put in circulation ,'' at any 
time. 

But let us now see what qualifications of my former state- 
ments, on this branch of the subject, I ought to make, upon 
Mr. Lowell's present showing. 

It is stated by him, [L. p. 61.] that " Mr. William Boott 
went abroad, for the benefit of his health, in 1822, [being 
then scarcely seventeen years of age,] and, after travelling, 
under the charge of his brother Wright, about a year, was 
left in Europe to pursue the study of medicine, and did 
not return until November, 1827." That is, he was absent, 
altogether, five years or more ; of which period something 
less than a year and a half was after he came of age, accord- 
ing to the date given by Mr. Lowell. [L. p. 63.] If he is 
right in that, I was mistaken, then, in speaking of this 



179 

"gentleman as under age, throughout the entire period of his 
stay abroad. That was literally true only for more than 
seven tenths of the period. 

Mr. Lowell says I was '' very much mistaken " in stating, 
" that for these expenses in Europe there was no voucher ;" 
and he refers to certain original letters and accounts current 
of Mr. Samuel Williams, of London, and of other merchants 
abroad, which he has found among Mr. Boott's papers. [L. 
p. 62.] 

That Mr. Lowell happens to find vouchers of this descrip- 
tion, for a part of this period, is owing to nothing but the 
accidental circumstance, that the transactions passed through 
the hands of foreign bankers, or commission merchants, who, 
of course, transmitted their accounts to their employer, Mr. J. 
Wright Boott. So far as those accounts may vouch payments, 
specifically and distinctly, for Mr. William Boott's own use, 
I admit the correction. 

The main question, however, on this point, is, whether the 
allegation of the probate account, that $10,000 had been paid 
to Mr. William Boott in a distribution of the estate, and in full 
for his share, except in the reversions, is true ? It is not pre- 
tended, by Mr. Lowell, that any such payment had been 
made, otherwise than by defraying that gentleman's European 
expenses, or by his living at home, after his return. Now 
the amount of Mr. William Boott's expenses abroad, at that 
early period of his life, is, of course, unknown to me. I 
imagine it is to himself. Mr. Lowell admits that it is un- 
known to him. 

" What the amount of Mr. William Boott's expenses were, during 
the/owr years of his residence abroad, after his brother's return to 
this country, I [Mr. Lowell] do not know." [L. p. 6L] 

He says nothing of the expense of the year before that 
return. Of that he is, evidently, equally ignorant. How is 
this, if I was so " very much mistaken," in supposing that 
Mr. J. Wright Boott was not accustomed to state and keep 
accounts and vouchers of these matters ? 

The accounts cm-rent of Mr. Samuel Williams, referred to 



180 

by Mr. Lowell, run, as he says, from October, 1825, to No- 
vember, 1827. [L. p. 61.] That is, they cover the last two 
years, only, of Mr. William Boott's foreign residence : and 
sixteen months, out of the twenty-four, were, according to 
Mr. Lowell, after he was of age. [L. p. 63.] But is it not 
very clear, from Mr. Lowell's showing, that he did not ex- 
pend his whole patrimony in Europe, as Mr. Lowell pretends, 
so as to justify this charge, in the probate account of 1844 ? 
Our views of accounts, it has been seen, sometimes differ 
widely ; but, as I have never seen the particular accounts 
current spoken of, I take, for my present purpose, his own 
statement of them. 

He says, the charges, in those accounts, which belong to 
Mr. William Boott's personal expense, for those last two years, 
amount to $6500 ; and that he knows no reason to doubt, 
that the two preceding years were equally costly. [L. p. 61.] 
But are the expenses of a boy from eighteen to twenty, 
usually, as large as those of a young man from twenty to 
twenty-two ? — Do the expenses of a student at a medical 
school, (if that was Mr. William Boott's position, as Mr. Low- 
ell asserts,) usually compare with those of a gentleman trav- 
elling in Europe, or beginning to occupy, there, a place in 
society ? 

During the greater part of the " two preceding years," 
however, Mr. William Boott was, in fact, living or travelling, 
in Europe, in company with Mrs. Boott, a large portion of 
the time being spent in Paris. The last two years, on the 
other hand, were after his mother's return to this country, 
and were passed by him in Great Britain, and were, no doubt, 
attended with considerable expense. He alludes to this in 
one of his letters from Dublin, printed by Mr. Lowell. [L. 
p. 132.] His expenses, there, are, manifestly, no criterion 
for those of earlier years, passed elsewhere, and under differ- 
ent circumstances. The argument, however, is, that if those 
years were " only half as costly, he still expended the 
sum of $10,000, charged to him in the account, before he 
returned to this country." [L. p. 61.] Suppose he did, 
(which is entirely gratuitous,) that does not meet the true 



181 

question. The question is, — not how much money, in the 
whole, Mr. William Boott's residence in Europe may have 
cost to somebody, but, — whether this sum is rightfully charg- 
ed to the estate by the executor, in his accomit of 1844, as a 
distributive payment of capital. In other words, the fair in- 
quiry is, how much of that $10,000, (if he spent any such 
sum,) was properly chargeable upon his share of the patri- 
mony ? 

Until he came of age, we have already seen, that his patri- 
mony was expressly exempted, by his father's will, from all 
charge, except for clothing and education. If his mother, 
with the concm-rence of the testamentary guardian, chose, 
instead of maintaining him at home, to send him abroad, at 
the age of seventeen, and to maintain him there, during the 
residue of his minority, although this was done from the best 
and kindest motives of motherly and brotherly affection, all 
this does not alter the will, nor authorize the executor and 
guardian to charge, upon the estate, and his ward's patrimony, 
a class of expenses abroad, for which, during minority, he 
was not chargeable, at home. Even the clothing and educa- 
tion bills were optional with the mother to charge against 
him or not. There is no evidence, and I have no belief, that 
she ever authorized, or that Mr. J. Wright Boott ever made, 
on her accomit, any such charge against Mr. William Boott, 
or against any other one of her children. Be that as it may, 
the general expense of his living and travelling in Europe, 
from seventeen to twenty-one, clearly did not touch his 
patrimony, any more than the many superfluities of indul- 
gence allowed by Mrs. Boott to her children, at home, touched 
theirs. 

Perhaps it may be said, that so much, at least, of the entire 
expenditure, during minority, as belongs fairly to the partic- 
ular items of clothing and education, ought to be regarded, in 
equity, upon a settlement of accounts, in 1844, as a payment 
out of his patrimony, even if no specific charge were made 
for them, at the time. I do not admit this ; but, assuming it 
for the present, the question would then arise, what was the 
amount, which Mr. J. Wright Boott, if authorized by Mrs. 



182 

Boott, might have charged against Mr. William Boott's share 
of the estate, for the expense of his clothing and education, 
while a minor in Europe ? Mr. Lowell does not tell us this ; 
but it was, certainly, a matter for the mother and guardian, 
and not for the boy himself, to regulate ; and Mr. Lowell 
does tell us, that it appears, by a letter from Mr. Williams of 
London, to Mr. Welles of Paris, that the regular allowance 
for all his expenses, (so Mr. Lowell reads it,) was only £100 
a year ! [L. p. 61.] 

Mr. Lowell remarks, by the way, that this allowance comes 
to " $500, the interest at five per cent, of $10,000." [L. p. 
63.] What of that ? He affects to consider it proof, that 
$10,000 was the known, and admitted amount of each heir's 
inheritance. Had the allowance happened to be $400, he 
might, with just as much force by way of an argument, have 
remarked, that this sum is just the interest at four per cent, 
of $10,000. Whatever the amount of the patrimony was, 
and whether it was lent to the firm under the authority of 
the will, or lay in the executor's and guardian's hands unac- 
counted for, the rate of interest, to be paid for it, undoubt- 
edly was six per cent., and the allowance, to help Mr. Low- 
ell's argument, ought to have been $600 ; or, if it was $500, 
the share ought to have been only about $8300. 

But let us consider, for a moment, how Mr. William Boott's 
account with his share of the estate ought to have stood, on 
the day of his majority, supposing that share to have been no 
larger than Mr. Lowell pretends, that is, $10,000. According 
to the will, it should have been on interest from March 19, 
1818, to June 15, 1826, when, according to Mr. Lowell, Mr. 
William Boott attained his majority. [L. p. 63.] If the interest 
were not withdrawn, but reinvested, and nothing were charged 
for clothing and education, — ^which I aver to have been the 
fact, — the fund should, then, have amounted to about 
$16,000. But, supposing him to have been charged with 
that class of expenses, what were they? For the four years, 
from the age of thirteen to that of seventeen, while he was 
living at home, they could hardly have exceeded $1200, in 
the whole, according to the scale of that day ; and while 



183 

abroad, from the age of seventeen to that of twenty-one, 
if we appropriate, for that class of expenses, the whole of 
his allowance, as shown by IVIr. Lowell, it would add but 
$2000 for these four years ; and allowing interest upon 
these charges, as we do on the other side of the account, 
we shall find, on the day he came of age, a balance of, at 
least, $12,000, to represent his patrimony, besides rever- 
sionary interests. From that day, it is true, all his ex- 
penses became a charge upon his o^m property ; and, estimat- 
ing them according to the rate indicated by Mr. Lowell, with 
a proper interest account, both upon the charges and upon 
the property, he should have foimd, on his return to this comi- 
try, some seven or eight thousand dollars, at least, remaining, 
out of the original ten thousand, after all proper and alloAvable 
charges had been made. If the original amount were §20,000, 
or near it, as I aver, instead of $10,000, as Mr. Lowell avers, 
the accumulation by interest, during minority, beyond the 
expense, for which the minor's property was legally chargea- 
ble by his father's will, would have been enough, probably, 
to have covered all Mr, William Boott's expenses in Europe, 
after he was of age, and to have left his original share quite 
unimpaired : and this, it will presently be seen, must have 
been the view originally taken by Mr. J. Wright Boott, to ac- 
count for his representations, in 1827, of the amomit then 
due to Mr. William Boott. 

That gentleman may well be excused, therefore, for having 
^^ forgotteUj''^ as Mr. Lowell ironically remarks, "that he had 
consumed his entire patrimony before he was twenty-three 
years of age." [L. p. 63.] No such fact had happened, even if 
we admit ]Mr. Lowell's unfoimded assumption that the original 
share was only $10,000, instead of $20,000, or near it, as I 
shall show it was. But without discussing, now, the question 
what it really was, I may suggest, that Mr. William Boott had 
the best reason in the world for believing, that he was en- 
titled, even after all his expenses in Europe had been paid, to 
$20,000, exclusive of reversions ; — for Mr. J. Wright Boott 
told him so. This is the single exception, I spoke of, to my 
statement, that all the facts, in my former pamphlet, resting 



184 

on Mr. William Boott's authority, related, exclusively, to the 
question of his brother's sanity. 

How does Mr. Lowell get over this fact ? I stated it, dis- 
tinctly, in my former pamphlet ; [B. p. 55.] but Mr. Lowell 
never once alludes to it in his '' Reply." The fact will 
be found to deserve a little more consideration. It deserves, 
too, a more particular report of the circumstances than I for- 
merly gave. 

The statement was not made to me with any reference to 
the use I made of it, nor any where near the time of my pre- 
paring my pamphlet, but many years ago, and under circum- 
stances, which impressed it on a memory not yet successfully 
impeached. The date I cannot fix precisely ; but it was after 
Mr. J. Wright Boott's embarrassments of 1830, and at a time 
when Mr. William Boott was thinking of engaging in a 
particular business. He talked with me on this point, and 
mentioned, in the course of the conversation, that, upon ask- 
ing about the amount of his property, in Wright's hands, 
soon after his return from Europe in 1827, (since which time 
he had, then, never exchanged a word with his brother on 
the subject of property or accounts,) he was told, by him, that 
he would have $20,000, from the property soon to be divided. 
Before this conversation between Mr. William Boott and my- 
self, the disclosures had been made by Mr. J. Wright Boott, 
to Mr. Kirk Boott and myself, which I shall presently no- 
tice more fully ; and we had thereby become aware, that Mr. 
J. Wright Boott had lost all his own property, and had not 
enough in his hands even to make good the particular trust 
funds established by his father's will, — as will presently dis- 
tinctly appear. For reasons, which will also appear, I did 
not feel myself at liberty to lay open this state of the case 
to the other heirs. But, that Mr. William Boott might not 
act upon a false idea, I advised him not to place too much 
reliance upon any statement of his brother, made so many 
years ago, with some remark intimating that I thought there 
might be a mistake. I remember well the warmth, with 
which Mr. William Boott, looking on my distrust as a sort 
of reflection on his brother, insisted, that there could be 



185 

no mistake, because Wright certainly knew best, and cer- 
tainly told him so. Finally, I recommended to him to con- 
sult his brother again about the state of his affairs, and to 
push him to some distinct answer. He did so, as he soon 
after reported to me. He stated to his brother what he was 
thinking of, and what he knew about a particular opportunity 
to engage in business, and urged him, on that account, to let 
him know exactly how he stood. Mr. J. Wright Boott, being 
thus ui'ged, abruptly answered, with some bitterness of tone, 
'' You are not Avorth a farthing, nor I either ;" and so the 
conversation ended. 

The reader will bear in mind, that, in the interval of 
a number of years, between the two conversations of Mr. 
William Boott with his brother, Mr. J. Wright Boott had 
become sensible of the fact, that he had lost, not only his 
own property, but all the property of his father's estate, not 
previously paid to the heirs, except a remnant, which Avas in- 
sufficient even for his mother's trust fund, and left nothing 
for any unpaid heir, except a share of what might remain 
of the reversionary property, at his mother's decease. 

All this, though disputed by Mr. Lowell, I shall abundantly 
make good. The conversations, between me and Mr. William 
Boott, rest, of course, on my own credibility ; but I may refer, 
in confirmation of them, to that gentleman. 

In qualifying my remark, that Mr. William Boott had re- 
ceived no specific payment on account of his patrimony, by 
adding, ''though it is true, that a considerable expense must 
have been incurred, on his account, before he was of age, 
while travelling in Europe," Mr. Lowell complains, that Mr. 
Brooks '' contrives to introduce, with apparent simplicity, no 
less than three unfounded statements, affecting the character 
of his own brother-in-law, removed by death from the oppor- 
tunity of a reply." [L. p. 64.] Here we have another speci- 
men of Mr. Lowell's candour. He specifies the unfoimded 
statements as follows : — 

" L That Mr. Wright Boott allowed these expenses. 

2. That Mr. William Boott was a boy, and under age at the time. 

3. That he was travelling, by permission of his brother, in Europe. 



186 

All three allegations are distinctly set forth, and all three are utterly 
unfounded." [L. p. 63.] 

The distinctness of these allegations seems to be Mr. Low- 
ell's work, rather than mine. But I beg to ask, what there is, 
in my language, above quoted, that reflects on the character of 
Mr. Boott ?■ — ^unless as a manager of trust property, which is the 
very point I am compelled by Mr. Lowell to discuss. When 
I denied the payment to Mr. William Boott of any specific 
sum on account of his patrimony, ought I not to have made 
the qualification I did ? Could I have made it in more appro- 
priate terms ? — or terms less reflecting on Mr. J. Wright Boott ? 

I ask further, whether my statements, on this head, were, 
as Mr. Lowell charges, '' utterly unfounded" ? So far from 
it, as to th.e facts, all I said turns out, by his own statement, 
to have been strictly true, except that, according to his state- 
ment, Mr. William Boott was not under age during a por- 
tion of the period, in which his European expenses were 
incurred. Mr. Lowell, indeed, says also, that he was not 
travellifig in Europe, while under age, or at least not by his 
guardian's permission, but that he was placed at a medical 
school ; [L. p. 54.] and he says, that Mr. William Boott 
spent, before he was of age, more than he was allowed, and 
that I reflect upon Mr. J. Wright Boott for having permitted 
him to do so. The reflection Mr. Lowell makes. I simply 
stated the fact, as I supposed it to be, namely, that con- 
siderable expense must have been incurred on his account, 
white under age, and travelling in Europe ; and Mr. Lowell 
now saysj that this was the fact, except that, instead of trav- 
elling in the strict sense of the term, he was only away from 
/lome, and at a medical school. That I* certainly made no 
point of ; nor is the fact, as Mr. Lowell now asserts. I never 
intended to intimate a doubt, which I am sure I do not feel, 
that Mr. J. Wright Boott did, with his mother's sanction, 
what he considered, at the time, to be for the best interest 
of his ward and youngest brother. In one sense, at least, 
Mr. J. Wright Boott must be deemed to have allowed the 
expenses, if, during the wardship, he furnished the funds and 
paid the bills. 



187 

The point, made by Mr. Lowell, is one, however, which 
I never offered to discuss. I discussed nothing but the alle- 
gation of the probate account, that $10,000 had been paid 
to this heir for his patrimony ; and I alluded to the expenses 
in Eiu'ope only as they bore on that question. If Mr. 
William Boott spent there more than his brother intended he 
should spend, he, certainly, (considering his age, and the 
circumstances,) is not more to be blamed for it than Mr. J. 
Wright Boott, to whom I impute no blame on that account, 
and who, I am confident, never intended to charge, nor ever 
did charge, the expenses so incurred, during the term of 
minority, to the accomit of his ward's patrimony. No such 
idea was ever dreamed of, in my belief, until Mr. Lowell 
made up the probate account of 1844 ; and we shall presently 
see, how reluctantly Mr. J. Wright Boott (then, as I think, 
in a very disordered state of mind,) adopted it. 

But, it is very apparent, that all this cavilling, about my 
pretended attacks on Mr. J. Wright Boott's general character 
and reputation, is only forcing a false issue, for the purpose of 
justifying, or excusing, Mr. Lowell's own attack on Mr. 
William Boott, whom he insists on treating as a joint author 
of my pamphlet. It affords to Mr. Lowell a shallow pretext 
for misinforming the reader, that that gentleman, while a 
youth, neglected " the golden opportunity," which, according 
to Mr. Lowell, his brother had provided for him, " to study 
medicine in the best schools of Paris and Dublin, to qual- 
ify him to gain his livelihood as a physician or surgeon ;" 
[L. p. 64.] and for further misinforming the reader, that, after 
wasting "his entire patrimony " in foreign capitals, he lived, 
for more than ten years, '' for aught that appears, at the ex- 
pense of the estate." [L. p. 62.] 

Nothing can be more unjust. I never before heard, and 
do not now believe, that Mr. J. Wright Boott carried his 
brother to Europe, or that he left him there, with any such 
purpose, or under any such definite arrangement, as Mr. Low- 
ell now ventm^es to assert, on his own unsupported authority. 
It is true, that, Mr. William Boott, while in Europe, and aftei^ 
his brother had left him there, did, at one time, turn his 



188 

attention to medical studies, and prosecuted them with inter- 
est and assiduity. This, so far as I know, or believe, was 
entirely his own movement, and not in pursuance of any 
arrangement made for him, or suggestion made to him, by 
his brother Wright. Indeed, I may say, that I know this, so 
far as the subject admits of knowledge ; for I was myself with 
him in Paris, at the time when he had but lately begun to pros- 
ecute medical studies. I refer to the time, before mentioned, 
when Mrs. Boott, Mrs. Brooks and myself. Dr. Francis Boott 
and his family, and Mr. William Boott, were all living there, 
together, in 1824-5. Mr. J. Wright Boott had returned to 
Boston in the autmim of 1823. Mr. William Boott's plans 
and pursuits were, of course, subjects of interest to our family 
circle, in Paris ; and I well remember Dr. Francis Boott's 
relating to us the fact of Mr. William Boott's first attendance 
there at an anatomical lecture. Mr. William Boott told me, 
besides, of his having begun to study medicine, a very short 
time before, at Edinburgh. Probably Dr. Boott's example, 
perhaps his advice, may have suggested this pursuit to his 
brother. The idea appeared to have originated at the time, 
of which I speak ; and it is certain that he had not been 
placed at a medical school by Mr. J. Wright Boott, and had 
not been engaged in medical studies by any direction from 
him, nor until some considerable time after Mr. J. Wright 
Boott had left Europe. 

It is also true, that, after a year or two, he abandoned 
the idea of pursuing medicine, as a profession, for reasons 
stated in a letter, which Mr. Lowell prints. [L. p. 132.] 
He came home, in 1827, and was informed that he had 
$20,000 of his own to live upon. If he lived, therefore, 
in fact^ as Mr. Lowell asserts, at the expense of the estate^ 
it was only because he was misinformed and misled, as to 
the state of his own property, by the brother, who had it in 
his keeping, and who, alone, knew its amount, if any body 
did. But he in fact lived, as the other unmarried members 
of the family lived, with his mother ; whose house was, by 
her desire, the common home of all her unmarried children. 
At whose expense they all, in reality, lived, depends upon 



189 

accounts, which Mr. J. Wright Boott never stated, nor in 
fact kept. Tiiey have, in truth, never been stated to this 
day ; for, as to the account of 1844, — except for the purpose 
of furnishing a form, under which Mr. J. Wright Boott might, 
by consent, be discharged, — I shall show that it was equiv- 
alent to no account at all. The property of all the family, 
however, was in his hands ; and their unbounded confidence 
in him allowed it to rest there, without account. Every 
child of Mrs. Boott Avas given to understand, that $20,000 
apiece was to come from it as a present inheritance. Mr. 
William Boott was perfectly justified, therefore, upon the 
information he had, in living as he did, and cannot be held 
accountable to any man, certainly not to Mr. Lowell, for 
having done so. He, however, repeatedly expressed his 
desire to enter into business. In this, he received no encour- 
agement from his eldest brother. Such was my understanding 
at the time. But, after the declaration, which amounted to 
a confession, extorted in the manner above stated, from Mr. 
J. Wright Boott, of his inability to account for the $20,000, 
which Mr. William Boott had been told was his, he embraced 
the earliest opportunity to take up such a pursuit as he 
thought himself qualified to engage in ; and, after a previous 
short engagement in a mercantile agency, he went, as is 
well known, into the employment of one of the principal 
corporations at Lowell, on a handsome salary, much beyond 
the wants of a single man, and he continued in that employ- 
ment for a number of years, and until that branch of the 
company's business was brought to a close, sometime after 
the death of Mr. J. Wright Boott. 

Besides this, it should be remembered, that, when his 
brother's misfortunes became partially known in the family, 
(although he had no idea of the extent to which the family 
property was implicated,) he freely joined in the release of 
1833, by which all the heirs in this country, who then had 
an interest in the estate, hoping to relieve Mr. J. Wright Boott 
from the depression, under which he laboured, discharged 
him from all legal accountability to them for any thing be- 
yond the annuity funds. In doing so, Mr. William Boott was 



190 

much the largest contributor to that object ; since every other 
heir had aheady received $10,000, at least, on account of his 
patrimony, and some had received the full $20,000, to which 
they were entitled, as I think the sequel will show. This was 
an act of generosity, which gave him a right to rely upon his 
brother'shonour, (a reliance, which, I doubt not, he esteemed 
perfectly safe, so long as that brother was in his right mind,) 
that he should not be allowed to suffer by it, further than 
the necessity of the case might imperatively require ; and 
my belief is, that he had no idea, until he got it from me, 
at a later period, of the extent, to which his own and the 
family property had been lost, beyond all hope of recovery. 

The foregoing facts were well known to me, and I believe 
they were to Mr. Lowell, at the time of their occurrence. At 
any rate, what reasonable excuse has Mr. Lowell for the un- 
founded imputations on general character, which he has thus 
wantonly hazarded ? I am no representative of Mr. William 
Boott, it is true ; but I feel bound to defend him, so far as facts 
go within my previous knowledge, against an attack equally 
uncalled for and unmerited, when the only pretext for it is 
my pamphlet, to which he contributed nothing, except his 
own testimony to his brother's insanity. He believed that, 
as I did, to be the sole cause of all the troubles in the family, 
and the only excuse for conduct, which will presently appear, 
I think, to have been otherwise utterly unaccountable. Did 
that belief of Mr. William Boott, — ^or his acting upon it, — or 
his permitting me to publish, in his defence, as well as mine, 
against current calumnies, a statement of some of the facts, 
on which his belief was founded, — afford the slightest excuse 
to Mr. Lowell for publishing these personal detractions, on 
subjects never put in issue by me, and concerning the char- 
acter of a gentleman, who, whatever his sentiments may 
have been, had published nothing against Mr. Lowell ? Mr. 
Lowell, now, publishes foj^ him, his confidential remarks to 
his brother, Dr. Boott, of London. Some of them may 
have been far from agreeable to Mr. Lowell. But do these 
private communications between brothers, upon their own 



191 

family affairs, afford the slightest excuse for this public 
attack ? 

Finally, what shall we say to Mr. Lowell's modest conclu- 
sion on this head ? It is in the following words : — 

" There can be no reasonable doubt, that he [Mr. William Boott] 
has received more than any other one of the heirs from the common 
property." [L. p. 62.] 

More than any other one ! — Not even excepting Mr. J. 
Wright Boott ! Such is the extravagant pretence, which Mr. 
Lowell ventiues to put forth in terms of positive assertion. I 
think it will be an effective answer to show, as I shall, that 
Mr. J. Wright Boott, after the entire loss of his own property, 
to say nothing of that of brothers and sisters, lived, for fifteen 
years, in the family mansion, without any income of his own, 
or other means of support than the remaining family property 
in his hands, including his mother's income, and paid, be- 
sides, within that time, in principal and interest, at least 
$60,000 of either the estate's money, or his mother's income, 
in discharge of his private debts, to Mr. Lowell himself ! 



CHAPTER XXI 

THE MAIN QUESTION OF THE ACCOUNT. 

DUM OF 1830. ITS VERITY PROVED BY THE "REPLY." 

It is time to proceed to the main question of this probate 
account. 

Was there, in truth, at that date, a cash balance of $25,000 
due to Mr. Boott, and chargeable either upon the property 
held by him, nominally, as executor, or upon the general 



192 

estate ? Was there not, on the contrary, a large balance due 
from him ? 

These questions arise, it must be remembered, without regard 
to the effect of the release, signed by most of the heirs in 
1833. Until the reading of Mr. Lowell's " Reply," I had 
always supposed that this release, discharging Mr. Boott from 
all legal accountability to the heirs, who signed it, except for 
the reversionary funds held under the special trusts of the 
will, was intended to be relied upon in proof of the sufficiency 
of the account; or rather as a legal dispensation from all 
proof or inquiry, concerning any property, which might have 
come to the executor's hands, other than he is therein charged 
with. That this was my understanding, at the time of the 
negotiation and compromise respecting it, appears by the fol- 
lowing passage, in the letter before mentioned, from Mrs. 
Brooks to her mother, written at that period : — 

" Mr. Boott has, moreover, taken advantage of ow discharge^ given 
him at a time of great pecuniary embarrassment, as an act of kind- 
ness and not one of justice, to hring in his accounts in such a way, as 
to make it appear as if the estate was in debt to him $25,000, just the 
amount of his private debt to Mr. Lowell," &c. [B. App. p. 49.] 

This letter, it will be remembered, was put into Mr. Low- 
ell's hands ; for Mrs. Brooks had said in it to her mother, " You 
are at liberty to make what use you choose of my letter. 
Write to Mr. Lowell, and ask him, as a man of honour, if it is 
not all true." [B. App. p. 49.] Under that authority, Mrs. 
Boott sent the letter to Mr. Lowell. He admits its receipt. 
[L. p. 205.] He was, therefore, aware that we understood this 
form of the account to have been founded on the supposed 
effect of the discharge. Yet, if that were an error, as he now 
says it was, and the account were really intended to embrace 
all receipts and payments during the whole executorship, un- 
affected by the discharge of 1833, why did not Mr. Lowell, 
being thus informed of our understanding to the contrary, 
disabuse us on that point ? — and why did he not, then, vouch- 
safe the remarkable explanation, which he now gives ? Would 
he not have done so, had it then occurred to him ? How 



193 

much of misunderstanding and unhappiness, all round, might 
have been avoided, if a true explanation could then have been 
made, that would have shown to me the grievous mistake, 
under which, according to Mr. Lowell, I must all along have 
labom'ed ! 

However that may be, we have, now, no choice in the mat- 
ter. The " Reply " insists, that the account is literally cor- 
rect, and that Mr. Boott repudiated the idea of availing him- 
self of that discharge. " Knowing," says Mr. Lowell, '' that 
Mr. Boott had received a discharge in full, which would be a 
complete bar against all demands, I asked him why he did 
not commence his accomits from the date of that discharge. 
He answered ; ' No, Mr. Lowell ; I am determined to begin 
from the beginning, and show that the estate has not been 
wasted in my hands.' " [L. p. 31.] Accordingly, although 
Mr. Lowell thinks the position of the accomiting party would 
have been perfectly impregnable, (which I shall presently 
consider,) if he had stated an account beginning at the date 
of the release, he says that Mr. Boott, being charged '' with 
having mismanaged and wasted the estate, a mere technical 
immunity would not suit his lofty spirit ; his honour was im- 
plicated, and it was dearer to him than life. He chivalrously 
threw aside the aegis of his discharge. He tendered a full 
accomit of his stewardship. He defied his assailants to the 
proof," &c. [L. p. 206.] The meaning of all which, in plain 
and simple English, is, that the accomit is declared, by Mr. 
Lowell, to have been intended, by Mr. Boott, for a full and 
complete summary, as upon its face it purports to be, of all his 
receipts and payments, throughout the entire term of his 
executorship, and consequently is to be considered and dealt 
with precisely as if no release had ever been given to him by 
the heirs. 

It is said, plausibly enough, that '' to impugn these ac- 
counts," — that is, so far as to demonstrate some error material 
to the general result, — it must be shown, " either that Mr. 
Boott received more, or that he paid away less, than is stated 
in the account." [L. p. 45.] That, however, plausible as it 
may seem, is by no means the whole question. Another, 

25 



194 

equally important, is, at what time the executor's cash bal- 
ance is to be struck and deemed to have been invested, for 
account of the estate, in the property then held by Mr. Boott 
in his own private name ? Or, of all the property held by him 
at any time under his own name, what portions, if any, are 
to be considered as original investments for the estate, and 
what for himself? The form, in which Mr. Lowell states 
the question, adroitly evades and shuts out those branches of 
inquiry, which, of themselves, when truly answered, will be 
found decisive against the pretended cash balance of the pro- 
bate account. 

But that I am under the burden, as Mr. Lowell contends, of 
re-forming the account, or of showing, exactly, how the error 
has arisen, and in what it consists, I deny ; at least, until Mr. 
Lowell has first put me in possession of '^ all the documents," 
from which it was made up. I deny that the burden, as it 
originally stood, is shifted in the issue between us. If, I re- 
peat, on a hearing in the probate court, Mr. Boott would have 
been bound to prove the particulars, and to exhibit his evi- 
dence of the facts stated, Mr. Lowell is equally bound now to 
do so, upon the new issue, which his assertions, founded upon 
the assumed substantial accuracy of the account, and directed 
against me on that basis, have raised. He chooses to exhibit 
nothing, however ; and, yet, has the assurance to call on me, 
either to prove the reception by Mr. Boott of some particular 
sum, which the account does not state, or else to prove that 
he had paid away less, in the whole, than it does state. He 
shelters himself from the production of documents, except 
so far as he finds it for his interest to produce them, under 
the plea that the formal decree of the probate court, allowing 
the account, under a previous agreement of the parties to 
permit it to pass without question, dispenses with all vouch- 
ers and further inquiries, now that its reality has come into 
question, upon his allegation that it was a good proveahle 
account. If that were so, the account, so passed, would 
simply prove itself, and it would be quite absurd to be talking 
about burden of proof. If he means, as he sometimes says, 
that the affair of the account is concluded, let him rest 



195 

upon that. If not, and other proofs may now be gone into, 
what can be more ridiculous than to insist that the burden 
is on me to produce them, when '' all the documents, from 
which the account was made up," are in his own possession! 
He expressly refers to niaterials furnished by Mr. Boott, and 
to the books of Boott 6& Lowell, as the sources, from which 
he drew this exhibit. [L. pp. 30, 31.] But he carefully 
locks up all these books and papers, and then, with an air of 
confident defiance, cries out. Now, prove the errors and 
omissions, if you can ! 

• With this disadvantage, I, nevertheless, proceed to the in- 
quiry, protesting, by the way, against Mr. Lowell's doctrine 
of burden of proof, but admitting that one important problem 
to be solved, on the question of mismanagement, though by 
no means the only one, is, whether the executor has either 
charged himself with too little money received, or credited 
himself with too much as paid away. I pass by, for the pres- 
ent, the great item of near $275,000, set down for income, 
said to have been both received and paid,— not as immaterial, 
but — because it stands on both sides of the account ; and if 
it all arose from the investment of the widow's trust fund, as 
the account supposes, it belonged to her, and, whether really 
paid to her or not, would not affect the final cash balance, in 
which the heirs were, directly, concerned. Supposing, then, 
all income and interest of moneys to have been properly 
disposed of, is it a fact, that Mr. Boott had received, as ex- 
ecutor, no more than $186,000 of moneyed capital from his 
father's estate, and that he had distributed $90,000 of it 
equally among the heirs ? 

The latter branch of the inquiry, which respects, more 
particularly, Mr. William Boott's portion, has already been 
discussed. The payment of $10,000 to him, either in full, 
or on account, of his distributive share, I deny, for reasons 
already stated. The payment, in some form or other, of at 
least that sum, to all the other heirs, I admit ; and inequal- 
ities of payment, beyond the $10,000, depend upon first 
establishing the fact that there was more to be distributed. 

The main question, then, turns upon the other side of the 



196 

account, and is embraced in two items only, — namely, the 
item of nearly $116,700 debited as received prior to May 11, 
1818, in part of the testator's interest in the firm, of which 
he was a partner, and the item of nearly $69,300 debited 
as received, at some date not given, from the firm of Boott & 
Lowell, — a firm, which did not exist in the testator's life- 
time, and in which his estate had no legitimate concern. 
Was the executor justly chargeable for no more than this ? 
Was this all the property, which should have remained after 
a just and legal settlement of the father's estate, except his 
mansion-house, and other specific items of the inventory ? • 

Mr. Lowell has the justice to concede, (and I rather think, 
it is a singular instance of his conceding any thing not for his 
own advantage,) that direct proof, from me, of what the ex- 
ecutor had received, (all the books and papers, that exist, 
being in Mr. Lowell's own hands,) was, from the nature of 
the case, impracticable. [L. p. 45.] The inquiry involved 
the history of several firms, and of many private transactions 
of Mr. J. Wright Boott, either unknown to me, or known 
only in the most general way. Since all his investments, 
whether intended to be for the estate, or intended to be for 
himself, had, for a long series of years, been made in his 
own sole name, with nothing to distinguish the one from 
the other, a part of the inquiry was, what private fortune of 
his own Mr. J. Wright Boott had, to mix in these invest- 
ments ,• what the aggregate of the investments at any time 
was known to have amounted to ; and what losses he had 
met with in his private business, or in business, which he 
had no right to undertake on account of the estate, although 
its funds may have been in fact borrowed and used for that 
business. 

No executor's account having ever been settled, or stated, 
except the account of 1818, which admitted a realization of 
cash, within sixteen months from the testator's death, out of 
his interest in the first firm of Kirk Boott & Sons, to the 
amount of about $116,700, and no private account of his sub- 
sequent transactions, either as executor or on his own behalf, 
being open to me, in order to show that more had, afterwards, 



197 

come to the executor than the $69,300 admitted to have been 
received through Boott & Lowell, I could, of course, only ad- 
duce circumstantial evidence. But the circumstances shown 
which I shall presently allude to, were such as to call loudly 
for explanation, and, if not satisfactorily explained, to leave 
the conclusion inevitable, that the account had omitted some 
large sum, for which the executor was properly chargeable. 
Mr. Lowell attempts to explain these circumstances, consist- 
ently with the truth and completeness of the account, and to 
adduce other circumstances in corroboration of it. These 
will presently be examined ; and I think the remarkable fact 
will appear, that he is most free to explain those transactions, 
of which he has least personal knowledge and no evidence, 
and that he discloses least of those, which he is able to state 
precisely, and in full, with proper proofs, if he would. 

The first circumstance, to which I shall call attention, is a 
written statement, by Mr. J. Wright Boott, of his own prop- 
erty, and that of the family in his hands, as it stood in 
1830. This is a good starting point ; because the informa- 
tion comes, directly, from Mr. J. Wright Boott himself, and is 
in his own hand-writing. Such a document is irresistible, so 
far as it goes ; and its statements, except in the accuracy of 
the valuation, are confirmed, in every particular, by extrinsic 
evidence. The paper does not tell us, it is true, what Mr. J. 
Wright Boott's own property originally was, nor what that 
of his father's estate was, nor how much of either had wholly 
disappeared before that time, nor in what way any part of it 
had gone. Upon these points, we are still left to inference 
from other sources. But, it shows all the property, whether 
of his own or his father's, then left in his hands, and in what 
it was invested. The particulars of this property we are en- 
abled to trace, thenceforward ; and we know, exactly, what 
became of every item. His state of indebtedness, at that 
time, is also matter of positive proof; and thus, by con- 
nexion with other facts, which are beyond question, we shall 
be brought to see, with certainty, the fallacy of the pretended 
cash balance of $25,000, claimed as due to the executor 
in 1844, even if we do not see the exact amount, for which 



198 



he was then justly chargeable in that capacity, beyond the 
receipts mentioned in his account. 

To this question, — the balance claimed, — I shall first ad- 
dress myself. 

The paper, above referred to, was handed to me by Mr. Boott 
himself, near the end of August, 1830, for the purpose of show- 
ing the total assets in his hands, except what he held for ac- 
count of the family of his cousin, the late Mr. Francis Boott. 
That paper I now reprint, with the explanation formerly 
given of it : — 

MR BOOTT'S MEMOEANDUM. 



« Mill Dam, . 


. S70,000 




Store, 


15,000 




Note, Wells & Lilly, . 


14,000 




Sturgis, 


42,000 


21,000 


J. A. Lowell, 


50,000 


30,000 


Other Shares, . 


19,000 




Stable, 


3,000 






$213,000" 





" This requires some explanation to make it intelligible. The first 
column of figures is supposed to represent property ; the second, cer- 
tain debts, for which a portion of it was pledged. The first item sig- 
nifies the amount, which Mr. Wright Boott had at that time invested 
in the Mill Dam Foundry, or in the business there carried on by him 
in partnership with Messrs. Lyman & Ralston. The second item is 
a store in State-street, which was left him by his father, as a partic- 
ular bounty, distinct from his share in the residue of the estate. The 
third item was a note of Messrs. Wells & Lilly, formerly booksellers 
in this city, whose affairs were in process of liquidation. Mr. Wells 
was the brother-in-law before mentioned. The note was payable to 
Mr. Wright Boott personally, and was for money lent to aid them in 
their business. It was, in truth, the note of Robert Lilly, the liquidat- 
or of that concern, though called, in the memorandum, the note of 
Wells & Lilly. The next three items were shares of manufacturing 
stock, viz. seventy-two shares in the Merrimack Manufacturing Com- 
pany, at Lowell, and thirty-nine shares in the Boston Manufacturing 
Company, at Waltham. Forty-two of the former were pledged to 
the Hon. William Sturgis, or to J. P. Cushing, Esq., for whom he 
acted, as collateral security to Mr. Wright Boott's note for S 2 1,000. 
Twenty-five of the former, and twenty-five of the latter were pledged 
to Mr. J. A. Lowell, as collateral security to another note of Mr. 
Wright Boott, for S30,000. The remaining nineteen shares continued 
unpledged. The last item was a stable, in rear of the family mansion- 



199 

house estate, which he had purchased from Mr. William Dehon a few 
years before." [B. p. 37.] 

Mr. Lowell's remark upon this is : — 

" On the strength of a mere pencil memorandum, unsigned and 
without date or caption, and relying on his memory after a lapse of 
sixteen years to interpret that memorandum, he [Brooks] undertakes 
to put us in possession of the whole state of Mr. Boott's property and 
liabilities^ and to found upon these reminiscences charges of utter 
insolvency and of a reckless and unprincipled use of the property of 
others ; charges deliberately made after full time for consideration, 
against the memory of his wife's brother." [L. p. 79, 80.] 

For the purpose of persuading his readers that no faith can 
be placed in this memorandum, and my exposition of it, Mr. 
Lowell, thereupon, proceeds '' to show what Mr. Brooks's 
reminiscences are worth, after such a lapse of time," by the 
instance of my supposed mistake in estimating the difference, 
between simple and compound interest, in Mr. Boott's guar- 
dianship accounts, at $10,000, instead of $2500, at which 
Mr. Lowell, by a most ludicrous mistake of his own, sup- 
poses he had himself, formerly, estimated it. His unfortu- 
nate series of blunders on this head I have already pointed 
out. [Ante, Ch. 6.] Let us look, then, to his present com- 
ments on the memorandum. 

On the strength of that paper, every reader of my former 
pamphlet will see, that I undertook to put the reader in pos- 
session of the state of the whole property in Mr. Boott's 
hands, as represented by himself, and nothing more. His 
liabilities^ except so far as a portion of this property was 
specifically pledged for them to Messrs. Sturgis and Lowell, 
are not named, nor alluded to, in the memorandum, nor did 
I, as Mr. Lowell asserts, rely upon it for them. I expressly 
referred the reader to other sources. But, as to my inter- 
pretation of the paper, — through which Mr. Lowell endeav- 
ours, thus, to shake its credit, as a thing, which rests, entirely, 
for its effect, upon a remarkably poor memory of mine, after 
the lapse of sixteen years, — it so happens, that there is not 
an item of it, which Mr. Lowell himself does not elsewhere 
admit J or incidentally prove. 



200 

What -would he have the reader believe that he means to 
deny or question ? That it is a list and valuation of prop- 
erty, made by Mr. J. Wright Boott himself, for some purpose, 
is apparent upon its face. The time and occasion of its 
being made are, besides, apparent enough from Mr. Kirk 
Boott's letters, printed formerly in my Appendix, and which 
I shall presently reprint. As to the items of real estate, 
imder the heads of " Mill Dam," '^ Store," and " Stable," 
my explanation only went to fix their identity with the iron 
foundry at the Mill Dam, the store devised to Mr. Boott by 
his father, and the stable bought by him in rear of the fam- 
ily mansion. Does Mr. Lowell dispute the identification ? 
The records of the Registry of Deeds, the will of Mr. Boott, 
senior, and the probate account of 1844, prove every one of 
these. And so does Mr. Lowell himself. 

In his general narrative of afi'airs, he thus identifies the 
first item, just as I did : — "Being, in 1826, out of business, 
in consequence of the breaking up of our copartnership, and 
having naturally a strong mechanical turn, he [Mr. Boott] 
entered into the business of casting iron, at afoundery which 
he erected for that purpose at the Mill DamP [L. p. 75.] 
In commenting, afterwards, on one of my estimates of Mr. 
Boott's pecuniary position, he says, '' The Mill Dam prop- 
erty, Mr. Boott^s half of which had cost $57,000 independ- 
ent of advances of about $13,000 more, is also deducted in 
full, as unavailable." [L. p. 90.] These sums, added, ex- 
actly correspond with the first item of the memorandum, 
"Mill Dam, 170,000;" and the statement confirms what I 
had said of it, viz. that the $70,000 was intended to repre- 
sent the amount of cash, which Mr. Boott had actually paid 
into that concern. This extract also serves to show Mr. 
Lowell's more intimate knowledge than mine of the manner, 
in which that sum was made up. 

Again, speaking of a supposed possible loss of papers, he 
refers to " the fire that destroyed Mr. Bootfs store in April, 
1825." [L. p. 59.] It was rebuilt, and he tells us that, at 
the time of the memorandum in question, ^^the store in 
State-street was for sale ;^^ [L. p. 87.] and again, " the store 



201 

he afterwards sold for $16,000 ;" [L. p. 86.] thus showing, his 
intimate knowledge of that item, and confirming my " rem- 
iniscences," where I had nothing but memory to guide me, 
in stating that " the store in State-street Mr. Wright Boott 
had been enabled to sell for $1000 more than it had been 
estimated at in his memorandum." [B. p. 46.] 

So, of the remaining item of real estate, Mr. Lowell says, 
'' The stable he had recently bought for the benefit of the 
estate, supposing, as he hhnself informed ifYie^ that he thereby 
acquired a right of way into Bowdoin-street." [L. p. 86.] 

In respect to Wells & Lilly's note, my interpretation of 
that item, it has been seen, went only to explain who Wells 
& Lilly were, how the debt arose, and that it was, in truth, 
the note of Robert Lilly, given as liquidator of their concerns. 
This item was also proved by the deed of trust, under which 
I afterwards held it. In that paper it was described as '' a 
certain promissory note given to said Boott by Robert Lilly, 
for the sum of $14,000, whereon has been paid the sum of 
$966 61." [B. App. p. 23.] But Mr. Lowell proves this 
item too, — and proves that he knew more about it than I 
had stated, — for he says, '' The debt of Wells & Lilly was 
secured hy a mortgage of 'personal property^ and was, a few 
years later, paid in full ;" [L. p. 86.] and again, " The debt 
of Wells &> Lilly was one which had grown out of advances 
made hy Mr. Boott ^ senior, to his son-in-law Mr. Wells, and 
subsequent advances by Mr. Wright Boott himself." [L. p. 
87.] These facts may be correct ; but they had not been 
stated by me. 

We have now disposed of the whole memorandum, except 
the three items, '' Sturgis," ^' J. A. Lowell," '• Other Shares," 
— the only parts of the paper, which had much ambiguity 
about them to explain. It is clear that the last relates to 
shares of something, and since they are spoken of as other 
shares, it is equally clear that the preceding items must have 
related to shares also. I explained them all to mean shares 
in the Boston and Merrimack Manufacturing Companies, 
rated at par, one hundred and eleven in the whole, of which 
nineteen were unpledged, and ninety-two were pledged to 



202 

Mr. Sturgis and Mr. Lowell ; and I undertook to state how 
many shares there were of each kind of stock, and how 
many of each were held by the respective pledgees, and that 
the second column of the memorandum, containing the 
figures ''21,000," and "30,000," expressed the amount of 
the debts, for which they were held. I further explained, 
that there were some other shares in the same stocks, held 
by Mr. Boott at the time, in his own name, but which he 
considered to belong to his account as guardian of the chil- 
dren, and trustee for the widow, of Mr. Francis Boott, and 
which he therefore did not put into this memorandum. [B. 
p. 39.] 

If this were all mere " reminiscence," was it not, never- 
theless, to a fraction, true ? The certified transcripts, which 
I printed, from the stock legers of these two companies, 
together with the trust deed, and the probate account of 
1844, in which these same shares reappear, (less one which 
had gone to another account, as the record of transfers 
shows,) proved the facts as I stated them, and proved that no 
other shares in these companies were held at that time by 
Mr. Boott, excepting those, which he, soon after, transferred 
to his account as guardian, or trustee, for the members of 
Mr. F, Boott's family. But, if there were any deficiencies in 
my proof, Mr, Lowell himself has supplied them. 

As to the thirty-nine shares of the Boston Manufacturing 
Company, I ventured to inquire, why, in the probate account, 
some were put at the original subscription price, and some 
at a higher price. Mr. Lowell, in a passage too long for cita- 
tion, [L. p. 68-71] enters into a laboured explanation, which 
purports to account for the whole thirty-^nine shares at the 
prices charged, and shows, that certain other shares of the 
same stock, originally subscribed for, (concerning which I 
had been misled, because they were all subscribed for and 
taken by Mr. Boott in his own name,) belonged to his ac- 
count as guardian and trustee for Mr. F. Boott's family, and 
not to his father's estate — thus incidentally proving so much 
of the memorandum, and corroborating what I had said re- 



203 

specting those shares, which did not appear in it, and show- 
ing how well acquainted he is with all the facts. 

So, in respect to all the shares of manufacturhig stock, 
which my interpretation ascribed to that paper, as standing 
under the heads of " Sturgis," '' J. A. Lowell/' and " Other 
Shares," ratedtogether at $111,000, Mr. Lowell, commenting 
upon Mr. Boott's assets, and not then pretending to deny my 
interpretation, says, " the manufacturing stock had cost him 
$9000 more than the par value, at which it is put down in 
the memorandum^ and he had clearly a right to charge it to 
the trust fund at its cost." [L. p. 86.] He, accordingly, 
adds that sum to the footing of the memorandum, in his 
estimate of resources, — ^thus plainly admitting all that re- 
mained to be admitted on the debit side of that paper, and 
showing, again, his intimate acquaintance with the facts, by 
stating the actual cost of that stock to Mr. Boott^ which was 
wholly unknown to me. 

On the very next page [L. p. 87] he inquires, ''and what 
were his debts ? He owed Mr. Wm. Sturgis, for Mr. Gush- 
ing, $21,000. He owed me for the estate of Jonathan 
Amory $30,000" ; and these are the precise sums set against 
those names on the credit side of the paper. 

To complete the proof, from Mr. Lowell's own lips, it only 
remains to show, that forty-two of the Merrimack shares 
were pledged for that debt to Mr. Sturgis, and twenty-five 
of each stock to Mr. Lowell for his debt. This we gather 
from himself, in detached sentences, as follows : — Speaking 
of Mr. Boott's pecuniary position, he says, '' He had tempo- 
rarily borrowed, on a pledge of stocks, $51,000." [L. p. 88.] 
In endeavouring to exculpate himself from too intimate a con- 
nexion with some of the subjects of inquiry, he says, " I 
had had no personal dealings with Mr. Wright Boott, except 
that I had lent to him, a few years before, a large sum of 
money, from the trust funds in my hands, belonging to the 
estate of Jonathan Amory, on a pledge of manufacturing 
stock.^^ [L. p. 29.] What the sum was he states at p. 87, 
as above shown. In endeavouring to convict me of a mis- 
take, concerning Mr. Boott's having paid off his debt to 



204 

Mr. Sturgis, (I shall have a word more to say on that 
subject in due time,) he says, '' I paid the f 21,000 to Mr. 
Sturgis, and took the debt to my account as trustee, at the 
request of Mr. Boott, who preferred to be indebted to me 
alone. The effect of the transaction was to relieve one half 
of the stock which had been pledged to Mr. Sturgis, as the 
shares which I already held, with the tioenty-one shares 
transferred to me hy him, amply secured me for the whole 
of my advances." [L. p. 96.] So, in endeavouring to give 
a different version from mine (about which I shall also have 
occasion to speak by-and-by,) of a certain agreement men- 
tioned by me, whereby those stocks, which he originally 
held in pledge from Mr. Boott in his private name, were 
transferred by Mr. Lowell to Mr. Boott, as executor, and then 
re-pledged by Mr. Boott, in that capacity, to Mr. Lowell, he 
again admits all I had stated respecting them in my inter- 
pretation of the memorandum. [L. p. 41.] And when he 
desires to explain how the pretended cash balance of $25,000 
arose, he admits that he re-conveyed these same shares, once 
more, to Mr. Boott as executor, on the day of the presenta- 
tion of the accounts. [L. p. 42.] The number, so re-con- 
veyed, is fixed by the transcript from the record of transfers. 
In short, without multiplying instances, wherever the im- 
mediate occasion requires him, in the course of his '' Reply," 
to state the saine facts, he states them as of his own knowl- 
edge, in precise accordance with the memorandum as ex- 
plained by me, and proves, singulatim, every particle of its 
contents, and of my explanation of them, as a statement of 
all the assets held by Mr. Boott, for his own account and the 
account of the estate, at the date, which I give to the paper ; 
and, on the other hand, although the course of his argument 
rendered it most imperative upon him to show for Mr. Boott 
as much of private property as possible, and although the 
intimacy of his acquaintance with Mr. Boott's affairs displays 
itself at every turn, he does not pretend, in any page of his 
book, to point out, or to suggest that there was, to be pointed 
out, a siiigle other item of property then in Mr. Boott's im- 
mediate possession, (reversions I shall speak of presently,) 



205 

which this memorandum does not include, except (and these 
are my exceptions, not Mr. Lowell's,) mere articles of personal 
use, and the stocks, which he held for the F. Boott family. 

I have, then, only two inquiries to put to the reader. 

First, May we not safely assume, that this was indeed all 
the property Mr. Boott then held, (except as above excepted,) 
and that my interpretation of the paper, so far as it does not 
explain itself, was literally and perfectly correct ? 

Secondly, Is it consistent with that fairness and frankness, 
which the public have a right to expect from Mr. Lowell, 
in such a communication, that, when it serves his purpose to 
weaken the credit of the memorandum, he should not scruple 
to suggest, that the paper derives its value solely from my 
'' reminiscences," and that these are not to be depended on, 
notwithstanding he himself asserts, with a greater minute- 
ness of knowledge than I could boast of, every fact, which it 
states, or which I had stated respecting it, when it serves 
his purpose to avail himself of those facts in his own vindi- 
cation, or in support of his argument ? 

If these inquiries should be answered as I think they must 
be, the reader will have arrived at one point, that he may safe- 
ly rest upon. We shall soon see the inevitable consequences. 



CHAPTER XXII. 



MR. BOOTt's debts. HIS LIABILITY FOR DEBTS CONTRACTED IN 
THE NAME OF LYMAN «^ RALSTON. 

I plant myself on the memorandum, above printed from 
the original in Mr. Boott's hand-writing, as a document, 
which, in respect to the truth and completeness of its con- 
tents, is now proved by Mr. Lowell, in every particular, 



206 

precisely as I had stated it in my former pamphlet. It 
stands wholly independent now, if it did not originally, of 
my memory for explanation. It stands proved, and in effect 
confessed, to be a true exhibit of all the property, in present 
possession, held by Mr. Boott, at the time it was made, out 
of which the claims of his father's estate and his own debts 
were to be satisfied. 

The next inquiry is, what were his debts, exclusive of any 
thing he may have owed to his brothers and sisters, as heirs 
of his father's estate, or to the trusts under his father's will ? 
I stated them formerly, [B. p. 39.] from his own verbal in- 
formation accompanying the memorandum, thus :— 

An uninvested cash balance, due on his guardian- 
ship accounts for the minor children of Mr. Francis 

Boott, estimated by him at $20,000 

His own notes to Messrs. Sturgis and Lowell, - 51,000 
His endorsements of certain paper of Lyman & 
Ralston, then pressing, 30,000 



101,000 



To this I added, — ^not as resting on any one par- 
ticular statement of his, but as my own inference, 
from all I learnt on the subject, then and after- 
wards, — ^his liability for debts of Lyman & Ralston, 
beyond the $30,000 above mentioned, estimated 
by me at 50,000 



151,000 



Now what says Mr. Lowell ? 

'' He was indebted on his guardianship accounts about 
$20,000, and had endorsed the paper of Lyman 6o Ralston 
to the amount of $30,000, for stock purchased for the iron 
foundery." [L. p. 77.] ^^He owed Mr. William Sturgis, for 
Mr. Gushing, $21,000 ] he owed me, for the estate of Jona- 
athan Amory, $30,000." [L. p. 87.] Thus the '^ Reply " 
distinctly admits each item of my specification, except the 
last. 



207 

How is it with that ? 

Mr. Lowell does not question its amount. I rested that 
upon a letter of Mr. Kirk Boott, [B. App. p. 19.] in which he 
said, '' He [Mr. Ralston,] admits that the debts of L. & R. 
are $80,000 ; — and do you not think it probable that they will 
turn out more ?" I certainly did ; and so did Mr. Kirk Boott. 
But I took the minimum for my statement, and interpreted 
that to mean, not $80,000 besides the $30,000, which Mr. J- 
Wright Boott had specially endorsed, but $80,000 including 
the endorsements ; and I set down the addition of debt, be- 
yond the endorsements, at $50,000 only. This certainly 
was not to be complained of. But Mr. Lowell's ground of 
complaint is, that, for this sum, whether more or less, Mr. 
Boott "was no more liable than Mr. Brooks, or myself," [L. 
p. 90.] because, he says, on the alleged authority of Mr. 
Ralston's recent statement to him, " Mr. Boott never was a 
partner of that house, nor liable for their debts, except so far 
as he endorsed them." [L. p. 89.] 

The explanation given is, that Messrs. William Lyman and 
Robert Ralston, Jr. , brothers-in-law of Mr. Boott, were com- 
mission merchants, doing business, as partners, at Philadel- 
phia and Boston ; ''in the former place under the style of 
Ralston & Lyman, and in the latter under that of Lyman 
& Ralston ;" and that the business of the Mill Dam Foundry 
was a separate concern, for the casting of iron, in which, only, 
Mr. Boott was jointly interested with them. [L. p. 76.] 

On this state of facts, Mr. Lowell thinks it certain, and as- 
serts with his usual positiveness, again and again, that there 
was no liability of Mr. Boott for the debts of Lyman &> Ral- 
ston, or Ralston & Lyman, except so far as he became their 
endorser; [L. p. 76. 89., &c.] and he accordingly inveighs 
against me, as a wanton calumniator of the memory of Mr. 
Boott, for having imputed to him a pecuniary liability, which 
Mr. Lowell says, did not belong to him. He thinks this a 
criminal negligence, at least, — especially with the letters of 
Mr. Kirk Boott in my hands, which, he says, so far from sup- 
porting my "extravagant statements," on the contrary, "ex- 
pressly contradict him [Brooks] on the point of Mr. Boott's 



208 

liability for the $50,000 of Lyman &. Ralston's private 
debts." [L. p. 92.] 

Now I am by no means satisfied, on Mr. Lowell's dicta- 
torial assertion, that I committed any error here. It contra- 
dicts, too strongly, my whole current of impressions formed 
at the time. I will not be quite so absolute as Mr. Lowell, 
in affirming that Mr. Boott actually was liable for the whole 
of these debts. I had no doubt of it when I made the fore- 
going statement ; and 1 believe it now. But, when it is so 
positively denied, and, as is said, on the authority of Mr. 
Kalston, I agree that it is a point to pause at. 

In these recent controversies, involving Mr. Boott's sanity, 
and the validity of his will, of which Mrs. Ralston is the 
residuary legatee, Mr. Ralston's pecuniary interest happens 
to place him on that side of the cause, which Mr. Lowell has 
undertaken to advocate. But that, I am sure would not 
affect his statement of a fact within his personal knowledge. 
The present, however, is not properly a question of fact ; 
it is one of opinion, in a matter of law, depending on many 
facts, concerning which we have not the benefit of Mr. Ral- 
ston's statement. It would be foolish, in me, to pretend 
certainty, in a mere legal conclusion, without more exact 
knowledge, or present recollection, of all the facts than I 
claim to possess at this moment. But that, of which I am 
certain, is, that both Mr. Kirk Boott and myself, upon the 
knowledge we had at the time, apprehended the full ex- 
tent of liability above stated, and apprehended it so seriously, 
that we both advised and acted upon that idea. And since 
Mr. Lowell ventures to assert, that Mr. Kirk Boott's letters 
do not countenance my " extravagant statements," I shall 
presently give the reader an opportunity to judge of that for 
himself 

As to the facts now stated by Mr. Lowell, it is true, that 
Messrs. Lyman & Ralston had been in partnership, as com- 
mission merchants, at Philadelphia and Boston, and I believe 
under the different styles mentioned, for some considerable 
time before the project of the Mill Dam Foundry was formed. 
It is also true, that their commission house continued to exist 



209 

after that scheme was entered into. It is further true, that 
the business done at the foundry, for the joint account of 
Mr. Boott, Mr. Lyman, and Mr. Ralston, was the casting 
of iron; but this involved, of course, purchases, sales, and 
various contracts, made elsewhere, with the use of either 
large capital, or large credit. All that business, of the joint 
concern, not done at the foundry, was transacted, I believe 
entirely, in the name of Lyman & Ralston at Boston, and of 
Ralston & Lyman at Philadelphia. Mr. Boott's name did 
not appear, I believe, in any of these contracts. 

I think it probable, too, that Mr. Boott had no interest in 
the mere commission business of Messrs. Lyman &> Ralston, 
if there was any, transacted for other parties. That, with 
the diiference of firms, may be what Mr. Ralston relies upon, 
if he says Mr. Boott was not a partner in their house ; its 
ostensible partners not considering him interested in the pe- 
culiar profits and losses of their commission business. But 
my belief, derived from the representations, at the time, of 
both Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ralston, is, that their capital and 
means had, gradually, become so completely absorbed in the 
business of the foundry and its incidents, that, at the time of 
which I speak, their other business was, and long had been, 
nearly nominal ; that their principal, if not their sole agency, 
as commission merchants, was, then, in the business of the 
Mill Dam Foundry, and in business closely connected with 
it, in which Messrs. Boott, Lyman, and Ralston were all 
jointly interested ; that the debts, growing out of that busi- 
ness, though contracted in the name of Lyman & Ralston, 
or of Ralston & Lyman, were for the joint use and benefit of 
themselves and Mr. Boott ; and that Mr. Boott had, conse- 
quently, made himself personally liable for those debts, 
whether he specially endorsed them or not. 

One difficulty about a settlement among these parties, if I 
remember rightly, was, that the affairs of the two firms, of 
which Messrs. Lyman & Ralston were nominally the sole 
members, and the affairs of the foundry, which embraced 
both them and Mr. Boott, and which were transacted through 
one or both of these firms, were so intermingled and compli- 

27 



210 

cated, that it seemed impossible, thoroughly, to extricate the 
one from the other. Under the arrangements made among 
the parties themselves, it may be perfectly true, that Mr. 
Boott was not considered by his associates to be a partner in 
all their dealings ; and in consequence of disproportionate 
advances made by him on the joint account, it may be also 
true, that they were bound to hold him harmless, to the ex- 
tent of their own property, against debts contracted in their 
own name, even when they grew, distinctly, out of operations 
for the foundry. But, in such cases, creditors would not be 
bound by the private agreements of the parties, nor by the 
components of the particular firm, with which they, nomi- 
nally, dealt, (since " Lyman & Ralston " was a mere house of 
agency,) but would have a right to look to Mr. Boott, when 
discovered, as a partner and principal, by the rules of law, 
whether his associates considered him so or not ,* and the ap- 
prehension, at the time was, that, unless some arrangement 
should be made to prevent the failure of Lyman & Ralston, 
Mr. Boott would be charged by their creditors, not only for 
his endorsements, which was certain, but also for their other 
debts, as debts contracted for his use jointly with them, al- 
though his name did not appear. 

According to my recollection, the parties did not even 
agree, among themselves, as to the extent to which Mr. Boott 
ought, in justice to his partners, to contribute for the liqui- 
dation of these debts. Indeed, I shall presently show evi- 
dence of it. And although Mr. Kirk Boott and myself looked 
upon them as debts, which Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ralston ought, 
under the circumstances, to provide for, if they could, we 
were far from thinking that their creditors would be likely 
to take the same view, or to abstain, on that account, from 
asserting their large claims on Mr. Boott. I am quite unable 
to perceive any thing in Mr. Kirk Boott's letters of the time 
which contradicts this idea. On the contrary, if they do not 
any where distinctly assert it, they at least seem to me per- 
fectly consistent with it, throughout. It is true, that he some- 
times speaks of these debts, and even of the endorsed paper, 
which Mr. Lowell admits was given for ''stock purchased for 



211 

the iron foimdery ;" [L. p. 77.] as no debts of Mr. J. Wright 
Boott. But, in these cases, I understand him to be referring 
only to the private arrangements of the partners, and to the 
state of accounts among themselves, arising out of their un- 
equal advances in the joint concern, and to particular schemes, 
then in contemplation, for the raising of money to meet the 
debts, and to the question, on which of them, as between 
themselves, that burden ought to fall, and not with any ref- 
erence to the rights of their creditors. 

His first letter to me on the subject, dated September 26, 
1830, shows the points, upon which he desired in the outset, 
to be informed, as appears by the following extract :— 

" It did not occur to me to inquire what are the relations of R. & L. 
and J. W. B. with respect to the works on the Mill Dam. Are they 
partners ? In whose 7iame does the property stand ? Has any in- 
cumhrance been made ? If not, are there any means of preventing 
the property from being attached V^ [B. App. p. 16.] 

His next, after he had informed himself on some of these 
points, begins, thus : — 

Lowell, Sept. 29, 1830. 
" My Dear Sir : 

If such a statement as you have recommended can be made up, 
which I fear J. W. will find almost impossible, it certainly would 
greatly facilitate the setdement. The truth may be approximated, 
if not correctly ascertained. Tlie immediate difficulty appears to lay 
with R. & L., and J. W. B.'s engagements on their account. For, as 
they are all partners in as far as the M. D. F, is concerned, if 
R. & L. are unable to meet their payments, or get their notes re- 
newed, there is fear that the whole of this property may he taken hy 
attachments^ [B. App. p. 16, 17.] 

Mr. Lowell himself does not question, but on the contrary, 
with singular inconsistency, expressly admits, that such an 
apprehension was entertained. " Both these liabilities," he 
says, referring to the guardianship accounts and the endorse- 
ments, "he could have met from his own resources; but 
there was an apprehension that the Mill Dam property might 
be attached for the private debts of Lyman &> Ralston." 
[L. p. 77.] 

And here it may be material to consider in what manner, 



212 

and upon what parties, it was supposed such an attachment 
might operate. Now this, also, is correctly stated by Mr. 
Lowell, so far as concerns the Mill Dam property, and so far 
as he admits the indebtedness of Mr. Boott. He only does 
not admit the extent of the mischief apprehended. His lan- 
guage is,— 

" Should this event [the attachment] occur, he might not be able 
to meet his engagements as endorser and guardioM. Bis father's 
estate was implicated in this issue to this extent, that his father was 
his bondsman, as guardian, at the probate office." [L, p. 79.] 

In other words, if the Mill Dam property were taken, for 
what Mr. Lowell is pleased to call '' the private debts of Ly- 
man &. Ralston," it was feared that Mr. Boott might be un- 
able to pay, not only his endorsements for them, but his own 
private debt to his wards, which Lyman & Kalston had noth- 
ing to do with, and that his father's estate might be compell- 
ed to make good that deficiency, so that the loss would ulti- 
mately fall on the parties interested in that estate. Upon the 
same principle, if he were indebted, besides, to his father's 
estate, so much more loss would be likely to fall on these 
parties. 

It may also be material to consider what the Mill Dam 
property was, and how it was held. It was a large manufac- 
turing establishment, consisting of land, water-power, expen- 
sive buildings and water-wheels, and all the machinery used 
in the processes carried on there, with the usual incidents of 
such an establishment in full operation. The title of the 
fixed property was vested in John Wright Boott and William 
Lyman alone, as the records of the registry of deeds in Nor- 
folk show. I have, besides, among other letters from Mr. 
Ralston, one written while the negotiation of the mortgage, 
formerly spoken of, was under consideration, in which he 
complains of the omission of his name in the title deeds. 
But it is needless to introduce it for this purpose, since Mr. 
Lowell himself states that one half the property belonged to 
Mr. Boott, [L. p. 90.] which is true so far as the legal title 
was concerned. Yet Mr. Kirk Boott writes at the time — 
^^ there is fear that the loltole of this property may be taken 



213 

by attachment ;" and Mr. Lowell, as above quoted, admits 
that it was so apprehended. 

NoAV will Mr. Lowell have the goodness to inform us, why 
it was apprehended that Mr. J, Wright Bootfs half of this 
property would be taken by attachment, if he were not liable 
for the debts ? In regard to the real estate, the case is clear. 
The half, though undivided, was his separate estate. How 
was it to be attached for Lyman & Ralston's private debts ? — 
that is, debts due from themselves alone, and not from Mr. 
Boott ? So, in respect to the joint personal property, how 
was Mr. Bootfs interest in that to be taken away from, his 
own creditors, and given to the separate creditors of Lyman 
& Ralston ? Joint liability, involving Mr. Boott, was mani- 
festly understood to be at the bottom of the whole appre- 
hension. And how strange is it, that Mr. Lowell should be 
so very sure, now, that there was no such liability, admitting, 
at the same time, that so many intelligent persons (himself, I 
doubt not, among them) were apprehensive of it, then, while 
the facts were all fresh before them. 

Perhaps he may say, the fear was, because of the endorse- 
ments, and that Mr. Kirk Boott refers only to them. But 
Mr. Kirk Boott does not place his apprehension on that 
ground. He places it, expressly, on the ground of the part- 
nership. " For," says he, ^^as they are all partners, in as far 
as the M. D. F. [Mill Dam Foundry] is concerned, «/R. & L. 
[Ralston & Lyman] are unable to meet their payments, or to 
get their notes renewed, there is fear,''^ 6fc. It is manifest, 
from other passages also, and indeed from the general tenor 
of his letters, — which are plainly apprehensive of a great ruin, 
not only to Lyman & Ralston, and to Mr. J. Wright Boott, 
but to the general family interest in his brother's hands, and, 
most especially, to his mother's trust fund, — that he was far 
from considering that the extent of Mr. J. Wright Bootfs 
liability was to be measured by the comparatively small 
amount of the special endorsements, or even by the value of 
the Mill Dam property alone ; for if Mr. Bootfs own property 
there was in danger of attachment, so was all other property 
held by him as his own. 



214 

It is Mr. Lowell's cue to brighten, as much as possible, 
what he calls '' this dark period of Mr. Boott's life," [L. p. 79.] 
and, therefore, to pass lightly over the contemporaneous let- 
ters of Mr. Kirk Boott. I certainly have no desire to darken 
it further. I wish only to present the fact in its true aspect, 
as it was then viewed; — and, perhaps, I did not myself, 
formerly, make these letters of Mr. Kirk Boott so prominent 
as I should, when I put them all into an appendix. But I 
shall have occasion, presently, to introduce them into my 
text, to illustrate further the apprehended extent of the dan- 
ger to the family property, and other points in the case. At 
present, I will only make one or two short extracts. 

In the letter last referred to, he says, " Since this unhappy 
disclosure, I get neither sleep or rest." [B. App. p. 17.] And 
again he writes, '' I feel, that, if left alone by any chance 
with my mother, that I shall hardly be able to contain my 
feelings." [B. App. p. 19.] Now those, who had the pleas- 
ure to know Mr. Kirk Boott of Lowell, do not need to be 
informed, that he was not one of those over-sensitive per- 
sons, who are liable to be thrown off their balance by a light 
matter ; but a man of uncommon firmness and self-command. 
Had Mr. J. "Wright Boott's position been, what Mr. Lowell 
represents it, that of a man worth from $70,000 to |80,000 
in his own right, who had suffered himself to be drawn into 
an engagement for other people, to the limited amount of 
$30,000 only, and that based upon good property and a pros- 
perous business, (for such Mr. Lowell declares to have been 
the understood condition of the Mill Dam Foundry) I beg to 
ask, what there was, in that position of affairs, to ^alarm and 
agitate, with days of anxiety and sleepless nights, the strong 
nerves and energetic mind of Mr. Kirk Boott ? What was 
there to excite, in a man of his temperament, intelligence, 
age, and experience in business, such a tumult of feelings as 
he could hardly restrain himself from pouring into a mother's 
ear ? It was not fear of unpleasant consequences to his sis- 
ters, Mrs. Lyman and Mrs. Ralston, alone, (since they must, 
necessarily, have participated in the misfortune of their hus- 
bands,) but, in the event of the failure of Lyman &/ Ralston, 



215 

the fear, which he states, is of the attachment of Mr, J. 
Wright Bootfs property/, with all its train of disastrous con- 
sequences to him and his dependants. Why disastrous to 
these dependants, if Mr. J. Wright Boott's own funds only, 
and not those of his father's estate, were invested in the iron 
foundry, and well invested too, as Mr. Lowell says, to the 
extent of only $70,000, and if his whole outstanding liability, 
on that account, was only $30,000 ? He might lose more 
or less of his own investment, but that could hardly bring 
ruin upon others, if Mr. Lowell's views are correct. 

Yet, says Mr. Lowell, '' no had management of the foun- 
dery business is any where hinted at," by Mr. Kirk Boott. 
[L. p. 81.] It was a property, "which there is no pretence 
was then considered a had investment. ^^ [L. p. 90.] " The 
foundery was supposed to be doing a good business; and 
their accounts showed a profit, which had been applied to 
the enlargement of the works. This concern owed no debts, 
except one of |2500 to Col. Thorndike;" [L. p. 78.] for 
even the $30,000 of endorsed paper he regards, here, as not 
given for debts of that concern, though he had just said it 
was given "for stock purchased for the iron foundery." [L. 
p. 77.] 

Now it is true, that Mr. Ralston believed, as is often the 
case with persons of little experience in that kind of busi- 
ness, that they had been making large profits. But, unfor- 
tunately, these had always gone '• to the enlargement of the 
works." So they always continued to go, while any paper 
show of profit lasted, and until the business of Messrs. 
Lyman & Ralston was finally wound up, with a very heavy 
debt beyond all the assets, as Mr. Lowell admits. [L. p. 202.] 
This was some time after Mr. Boott's extrication from the 
concern ; and the fixed property, which, Mr. Lowell says, 
had cost, in 1830, $114,000, [L. p. 90.] after remaining in 
the hands of the Ralston family, for many years, almost, if 
not quite, unproductive, was sold, at last, as we have seen, 
in 1847, for ^30,000. [Ante. p. 49.] 

Although Mr. Ralston, therefore, at the time now spoken 
of, may have entertained no doubt, that their business 



216 

was really prosperous, and that they were only suiFering 
a temporary embarrassment, for the want of a little ready 
money, Mr. Kirk Boott did not participate in those opin- 
ions ; still less, in Mr. Lowell's present opinion, that the 
concern owed only $2500 ! In his letter of October 10, 
1830, he says, " Ralston judges favourably of the business 
on M. D., [Mill Dam] and I confess it looks less desperate on 
paper than I expected. Still it is an up-hill business with 
such a load of deht.^^ [B. App. p. 18.] He had heard Mr. 
Kalston's representations, he had examined his figures, and 
he could only be brought to confess, that the business looked 
^^ less desperate — on paper^'' — than he had expected. But He, 
manifestly, felt no confidence in it. He trembled at the 
" load of debt." He wished to see the accounts more thor- 
oughly sifted. In a letter, soon after, he asks, '' cannot an 
assignment be made, and kept secret for the present, that 
would bar attachment^ at all events till we see the result of 
the accounts of the M. D. F. ?" [Mill Dam Foundry.] [B. 
App. p. 19.] 

In another of still later date, as the contents show, he 
writes : — 

" I saw R. R. [Robert Ralston, Jr.] yesterday afternoon, and ex- 
plained to him, very fully, that the plan he proposed for raising money 
on the M. D. F. could not be assented to. That in any event, J, TV. 
B.felt it to he his duty to assign over his property for the security of 
all his creditors ; and that in so doing, it seemed impossible but that 
the M. D. F. must be stopped. That however well his statements 
looked on paper, it did appear to me there must be some fallacy in 
them. And that as far as I could see, it was doubtful whether any 
profit had yet been derived from carrying on their works." 

******** 

" Some competent person should make out a statement of the affairs 
of the M. D. F. If a profit could be shown, adequate to their sup- 
port, and to the gradual liquidation of the debts, it might be a judicious 
course ; but, if otherwise, I felt assured that J. W. B. would not con- 
sent. To accomplish this, I am to send down Tufts, my clerk, and 
upon the result we could determine whether this course ought to be 
adopted," [B. App. p. 21.] 

Now Mr. Lowell does not overlook these passages. On 
the contrary, he expressly refers to them, though he does 
not quote their language. And how does he represent them ? 
He says : — 



217 

" No had managcmeyit of the foundery business is any where hinted 
at, Mr. Boott merely says (App. p. 21), that it was doubtful whether 
any profit had yet been derived from carrying on those works ; and 
again, that, if a profit could be shown equal to the support of the 
works, and the gradual liquidation of the debts (of Lyman & Ralston,) 
it might be a judicious course to go on ; and that he will send down 
his clerk, Mr. Tufts, to examine the books Avith the view of determin- 
ing this point. The result of Mr. Tufts's investigation is not given ; 
hut the works were permitted to go onr [L. p. 81, 82.] 

Of course, Mr. Lowell's reader, if he was not pains-taking 
enough to turn to my appendix and examine the whole letter 
for himself, was, by this, given to understand, and Mr. Lowell 
meant he should understand, that the whole question under 
consideration was, whether the works should be "permitted 
to go onf^ that Mr. Kirk Boott's opinion was, that it might 
be judicious, if a certain amount of past profit could be 
shown ; that the solution of this question was to depend on 
the result of Mr. Tufts's investigation ; and that, since " the 
works were permitted to go on," the result of that examination 
must have been satisfactory to Mr. Kirk Boott, and must 
have established the profitable character of this business, at 
least in his opinion. 

I will now present the residue of that letter, coming in be- 
tween the two paragraphs already extracted, that the reader 
may see for himself, whether he had been given to under- 
stand rightly, by Mr. Lowell, concerning its contents, and 
concerning the evidence of Mr. Kirk Boott's favourable 
opinion. 

" He [Mr. Robert Ralston, Jr.] was evidently seriously alarmed. 
In the evening. Ash. [Mr. A. Ralston.] and he took me into the 
library. Ash. remarked that all the debts coming due were to his 
family, and that they might be postponed ; and that, if it were possible 
to divide the stock there into shares, he thought it would be possible 
to induce some of his creditors to take shares for their debts ; and 
that he would himself. That J. W. B. shoidd have his proportion ; 
and that, if this were accomplished, he might then hypothecate them 
without stopping the works. This morning he proposed to me the 
following : That Lyman should convey to R. R. [Mr. Robert Ral- 
ston, Jr.] all his interest in the M. D. F., as well as any claim upon 
J. W. B. as executor, and his reversionary interest in the estate. 
That the partnership should he dissolved. That the stock should be 
made a joint concern. That J. W. B. should take charge of the works^ 



218 

and E. i?. manage the business in town. That $10,000 should be 
withdrawn as soon as practicable, to pay cash advances, made by 
Matt., [Mr. Matthew C. Ralston.] and that he would undertake that 
the other debts should lay for years, and be reduced out of the profits 
of the concern." [B. App. p. 29.] 

The matter referred to, then, was not the general question 
whether the works should go on or not ; but whether they 
should go on upon a particular scheme, namely, the turning 
of the concern into a joint stock company, — the shares to be 
divided between the Ralstons and J. Wright Boott — Mr. 
Boott to take his full propor^tion of the stock, and to conduct 
the works under his own charge, for account of that com- 
pany. 

Now the works were not permitted to go on according to 
that scheme, but according to a modification of it, contain- 
ing this essential change : The joint stock company was 
formed ; but it consisted of the Ralstons and Mr. Lyman, in- 
stead of the Ralstons and Mr. Boott. Mr. J. Wright Boott, 
acting upon his own judgement, with the concurrent advice of 
Mr. Kirk Boott and myself, and of Mr. Lowell, would have 
nothing to do with it. The result of Mr. Tufts's investiga- 
tion, if he made any, was, to satisfy Mr. Kirk Boott, — and if 
not he was otherwise satisfied, — that there was not such profit 
in the business as would make it a judicious course for the 
works to go on. Mr. Ralston still thought otherwise ; and 
the consequence was, that Mr. J. Wright Boott, under the ad- 
vice above mentioned, sold out to his partners, at great appar- 
ent loss, all his interest in the concern, upon the basis of a 
settlement, which Mr. Lowell himself effected, and gives 
some account of. The luorks loent on, it is true, — ^but upon 
a new and difi'erent account, not concerning Mr. J. Wright 
Boott, nor his father's estate, for whom and which it was 
preferred to meet the present loss, rather than to take the risk 
of continuing a business so poorly thought of by Mr. Kirk 
Boott, and which, as the event proved, turned out most dis- 
astrous. Yet, because the works were not physically stop- 
ped, Mr. Lowell, knowing these facts, suggests to the reader, 
that the going on, after what Mr. Kirk Boott had said, (as 
Mr. Lowell represents it,) shows t\\Q favourable opinion formed 
by Mr. Kirk Boott of that excellent investment. 



219 

• This seems hardly so exact, or so ingenuous, as one might 
expect from a gentleman, who assumes so high a tone, and 
who sprinkles his pages, so plentifully, with charges upon 
others of mistake and unfairness. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE BUSINESS OF THE IRON FOUNDRY. MORE 



For the main fact stated in the preceding chapter, the sale 
of the concern to a joint stock company, Mr. Boott retiring^ 
I need only refer to Mr. Lowell himself. [L. p. 79.] In- 
deed, he says, in reference to my former pamphlet, "but 
he [Brooks] is evidently ignorant that, by the settlement of 
1831, Mr. Boott iparted with his tohole right, title aiid in- 
terest in the Mill Dam Foundery , and had no more to do 
with its winding up, or the subsequent gain or loss, than Mr. 
Brooks or I had.''^ [L. p. 109.] So that, whether I were 
ignorant of this fact, then, or not, we do not, novj, disagree 
about it. 

I beg to say, however, in passing, that Mr. Lowell's infer- 
ence of my ignorance of a fact, very well known to me at 
the time, is founded only on the errors, which I have already 
admitted, in my recollections, without sufficient papers to 
guide me, of some of the details of those old and complicated 
affairs, and more particularly, it would seem, on this single 
sentence of mine : — " I presume, before the business was 
wound up, his loss there, including interest, was not much 
short of $100,000,-" — on which Mr. Lowell modestly re- 
marks, '' I do not doubt such is Mr. Brooks's judgement ; and 
his presumption is undeniable." [L. p. 109.] But, in this, he 
seems, himself, to have forgotten, that Mr. Boott's memoran- 



220 

dum, showing an investment in the foundry, at that date, to 
the amount of f 70,000, was made in the summer of 1830 ; 
that a large amount of interest had already accrued upon it, 
(for the business was begun in 1826;) that the business went 
on for the joint partnership account, and badly enough, till 
September or October, 1831, [L. p. 108.] with much probable 
further loss, besides accruing interest ; that about two years 
more elapsed, before the engagements, made to Mr. Boott, 
by his partners, in their settlement, were fully performed, as 
appears by the date of the surrender by Mr. Lowell of the 
last of the collateral securities, which he held for those en- 
gagements ; and that my opinion, whether right or wrong, 
of the extent of Mr. Boott's loss, including interest, was 
founded, expressly, upon the winding up of the business, '' so 
far as Mr. Boott's concern in it extended," [B. p. 46.] and 
not upon its final abandonment by Lyman & Ralston, as he 
would have the reader suppose. I had forgotten only, or 
rather did not turn my attention to, the immaterial fact of 
the particular manner ^ in which Mr. Boott's concern in the 
foundry terminated. 

The truth is, I was well acquainted with the whole course 
of the transactions at the time. The deeds and legal papers, 
connected with it, were, generally, drawn by me. Among 
other gratuitous services, I was instrumental in obtaining for 
Messrs. Lyman & Ralston, in June, 1831, the act incorporating 
'' The proprietors of the Mill Dam Foundry," under which the 
joint stock company was formed. I even allowed myself to 
be named in the act as an associate, to facilitate them in ob- 
taining it. I was much urged to take an interest under it, 
and even to consent to stand as a ?iommal stockholder, if I 
would not be a real one ; and, in that form, to lend, farther, 
my name and countenance to the scheme. But all this I 
steadily declined, — though much disposed to oblige them, — 
because I never felt the least confidence in the concern, nor, 
particularly, in their valuation of the property ; which, after 
they had bought out Mr. Boott, was turned in to the corpora- 
tion at the nominal price of $120,000, paid, of course, with 
stock issued to the associates, who were no other than Messrs. 



221 

Lyman and Ralston themselves, and other members of the 
Ralston family, creditors of the old concern, who took stock 
in the new, either for payment or security. One other gen- 
tleman, only, of this city, then a clerk of Lyman & Ralston, 
was, in the outset, the nominal holder of a single share, lent 
to him, as I understood, or taken upon a guarantee against 
loss, to induce him to act as clerk of the corporation, and to 
aid in keeping up its organization. Even the mortgage, to 
one of the Ralston family, which I thought had been fore- 
closed, I have since found, by the Registry of Deeds in Nor- 
folk, I myself discharged as his attorney ; though the papers 
having passed out of my hands, that fact, being one of no 
great interest in itself, and wholly immaterial to the present 
controversy, did not occur to me. I now find, that, of the 
one hundred and twenty shares originally created in this joint 
stock company, one hundred and two were issued to Messrs. 
Lyman & Ralston, and the rest were distributed between Mr. 
Robert Ralston the father, and Messrs. A. & G. Ralston, with 
one to the clerk. Thirty-four of Lyman & Ralston's were 
immediately transferred to Mr. Lowell, " for J. W. Boott," as 
collateral security for their engagements to him in the settle- 
ment ; and Mr. Lowell held a portion of them, on that ac- 
count, till about two years after. Fifty more were transfer- 
red to Matthew C. Ralston, the holder of the mortgage, which 
was thereupon discharged. From him they soon passed to 
Robert Ralston, the father, who thus became, virtually, as- 
signee of the mortgage debt, and of its new security ; and by 
other transfers, stock, to the amount of one hundred and 
fourteen shares, became, ere long, collected in his hands, and 
were held by his executors until the final sale of the prop- 
erty, in 1847, — the other shares (including a new issue of 
twenty,) being then held by other members of the Ralston 
family ; and by the officers of the corporation here, who, it 
seems from Mr. Nicolson's letter, [Ante. p. 49.] were official 
holders, and not parties in interest. Such are the facts, as 
they noAV appear, (except the last,) by the records of the. cor- 
poration, — leading to the substantial result, which I formerly 
stated, namely, that the whole property became vested in 



222 

the Ralstons, (though not by foreclosure of the mortgage,) 
and that it eventually produced to them $30,000 only, which 
was the principal of the mortgage debt. 

Upon all the facts now known, my belief is, still, that the 
whole concern, taken from beginning to end, with a mercan- 
tile interest account, was greatly more than a total loss ; and 
that Mr. Boott's share of that loss, up to the time when he 
became fully extricated, by the complete fulfilment, in 1833, 
of the terms of the settlement, made in 1831, was, with an 
interest account, no^ «^ all short of $100,000, excepting so 
far as a part of it may have been got back by his settlement 
with Lyman & Ralston, in 1831, partly in the shape of rever- 
sionary property, and partly in the shape of a discharge for 
the debt he owed them as executor. The extent of this I 
shall consider hereafter. 

For what I say, above, respecting my own distrust of the 
property at the time, and respecting my unwillingness to be 
connected with it, I am able to refer to another letter of Mr. 
Kirk Boott, not before printed ; and this is the more valuable, 
because it serves to confirm, if confirmation were needful, 
what I have said of his opinion ,* for it seems he advised Mr. 
Ralston, instead of going on with his joint stock company, to 
make an absolute sale and quit the business. It would have 
been fortunate, as Mr. Ralston would now admit, if that ad- 
vice had been taken. The only further explanation, needful 
to the understanding of the letter, is, that, being desirous to 
turn off, gently and without offence, the solicitations of my 
friends, I requested Mr. Kirk Boott to soften the matter for me, 
and to put my refusal on the ground that the business was 
out of my line, and that I was no fit judge of that kind of 
property, with such other suggestions as he might think 
proper. Of course, I did not wish to tell Mr. Ralston, in di- 
rect terms, that I thought his foundry of little or no value, 
and his business not worth pursuing, though it would seem, 
that Mr. Kirk Boott did not stop much short of that, in ex- 
pressing his own opinion, which he had, no doubt, a right to 
express with great frankness, from the course of the conver- 
sation, as well as because he was a very competent judge of 
such property and business. This is the letter : — 



223 

LETTER FROM Mk. IHRK BOOTT. 

*' Lowell, Sunday Morning. 
Dear Sir, 

According to my promise, I delivered to Ralston the 
papers you gave me, and explained very frankly to him the reasons 
why you could not, and ought not, to become interested with him in 
the Mill Dam property in the way he suggested. I explained to him 
your desire to serve him, but at the same time remarked, that your 
taking the lead would not produce the effect he seemed to expect, 
owing to the connexion subsisting between you ; but that if it should, 
it was placing you in an awkward position, as sanctioning a valua- 
tion of the property, of which you have formed no judgement, but 
which, it would be inferred, you had carefully examined, and approved. 
He took it in good part, but seemed unwilling to listen to any dispar- 
aging views of the value of this property." 

I advised him to endeavour to make an absolute sale, as I supposed 
he could make an advantageous removal to Philadelphia. I am in- 
terrupted — but will explain more fully when I see you. I had no 
opportunity to write, but sent a message, by Mr. Wells, which I sup- 
pose you would understand. My wife intends going with Dr. Bige- 
low, and will take Sarah. Love to Eliza. 

Yours, in haste, 

KIRK BOOTT." 

Edward Brooks, Esq., Boston. 

To return, then, to Mr. Lowell. He undertakes to say, that 
the foundry, for which alone, he says, Mr. J. Wright Boott 
was liable, stood quite free from debt, except a small sum of 
$2500 due to Col. Thorndike ! Now, in addition to the evi- 
dence of great indebtedness in the letters of Mr. Kirk Boott, 
I may remark, that it would be a novelty under the sun, in 
this country at least, if extensive iron works were conducted, 
for a series of years, by persons of moderate capital, (two, at 
least, of the three partners having, at that time, I may safely 
say, no capital, unless borrowed, and I believe this will ap- 
pear to have been equally true of the third,) and yet owe noth- 
ing, except a mortgage debt of $2500 for the land, on which 
they stood — for such was the character of the debt to Col. 
Thorndike. Mr. Lowell may be right ; but the proceedings 
of the joint stock company seem to speak a different language. 
For, it appears by the records of the corporation, that their 
first act, after fixing their capital at $120,000, the (nominal 
price, at which Messrs. Lyman 6& Ralston, after settling with 
Mr. Boott, sold the property to the corporation,) was to ex- 



224 

press the understood condition of that sale, and of the settle- 
ment with Mr. Boott, by the following votes : — 

EXTEACT TROM THE RECORDS. 

" Voted, that this corporation take the whole property, real and 
personal, which has hitherto belonged to John W. Boott, William Ly- 
man, and Robert Ralston, jun., as conveyed by deed subscribed by 
them, dated September, 1831, at a valuation of $120,000 — it being 
understood, that said corporation shall pay all bills, debts, or 
NOTES, contracted, or given, by said copartnership of said Boott, 
Lyman, and Ralston, and shall fulfil all their contracts for 
work or otherwise ; it being also understood, that the corporation is 
to have the advantage of all bills, or debts, due to the said parties, 
and contracts on hand." 

" Voted, that this corporation will guarantee and save harmless 
John W. Boott, William Lyman, and Robert Ralston, jun., and their 
executors and administrators, from all actions, suits, costs, and dam- 
ages, on account of a note given by the said Boott & Lyman to Israel 
Thorndike, for $2500, dated the 16th day of March, A.D. 1826, and 
payable in seven years, with interest, and on account of any and 
ALL OTHER DEBTS Contracted hy said Boott, Lyman, and Ralston, 

ANY, OR EITHER OF THEM, FOR THE USE OF THE COPARTNERSHIP 

HITHERTO EXISTING BETWEEN THEM, all wMch dcUs shall he paid 
hy this corporation at maturity »^ 

This it may be remarked, is, substantially, the declaration 
of Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ralston themselves ; for they were the 
only stockholders present at the meeting, besides the clerk. 
They passed the votes. The debt to Mr. Thorndike was 
particularized, because it was a Tnortgage debt, binding the 
real estate specifically. But an indefinite quantity of " bills," 
" debts," '' notes," and '' other contracts," are recognized as 
binding, personally, the late " copartnership of said Boott, 
Lyman, & Ralston," and requiring a guarantee from the cor- 
poration, to Mr. Boott, no less than to Messrs. Lyman and 
Ralston, notwithstanding the special security he had from 
them, as Mr. Lowell informs us, against the endorsed paper. 
[L. p. 79.] 

This seems to be what Mr. Lowell calls '' another contem- 
poraneous exposition, to be offset against his reminiscences ^^ 
[L. p. 104.] or rather against his present statements, found- 
ed, as he leaves the reader to infer, on the reminiscences of 
Mr. Ralston. 

But, there is one other authority upon this subject, which 



225 

Mr. Lowell will hardly dispute, — that is, himself. For he 
does not seem to have been always of opinion, that '' this con- 
cern owed no debts, except one of $2500 to Col. Thorndike;" 
or that Mr. Boott was not, in fact and in law, liable for them. 
Mr. Lowell takes no notice whatever of a letter of his own, of 
a date so recent as Jan. 31, 1845, which I printed in my for- 
mer pamphlet. [B. p. 130.] The question then under dis- 
cussion was, whether Mr. Boott was justified, in using the 
property of his father's estate in the business of this foundry. 
Mr. Lowell undertook to say, that a letter of Mr. Kirk Boott 
authorized the assertion, that I had, myself, formerly, consid- 
ered him justified in doing so. I asked to see the letter, and 
Mr. Lowell transmitted me a copy of that part of it, on which 
he relied. It showed nothing like what he had pretended. 
This the reader will see by looking at it, with my former re- 
marks in that connexion. [B. p. 129, &c.] But what I now 
call attention to is a single sentence from Mr. Lowell's own 
letter to me, transmitting the extract from that of Mr. Kirk 
Boott. It is this : — 

EXTRACT FROM Mr. LOWELL'S LETTER. 

" You will remember, that, bj a settlement afterwards made with 
Lyman & Ralston, J/r. Boott was exonerated from all the debts 
o/the Mill Dam Foundeby ; and of course, the fund was not dimin- 
ished, as Mr. K. Boott feared it might be." [B. p. 130.] 

That is to say, according, to Mr. Lowell's past and present 
assertions, taken together, Mr. Boott was exonerated from 
debts he was never hound for, and exonerated from all the 
debts of a concern, which owed no debts ! — unless, indeed, 
we except one of only $2500 to Col. Thorndike, and that se- 
cured by a mortgage of property, which cost $114,000 ! [L. 
p. 90.] 

These corporate records, and the deeds and letters I refer 
to, are the only documents open to me bearing on this question. 
If Mr. Lowell would have the kindness to exhibit those pa- 
pers, which he says he has, relating to the final settlement 
between Mr. Boott and his copartners, they would, undoubt- 
edly, throw further light upon it. That he has been careful 
not to do. But until he does, or until something more than 



226 

his own inferences, without the documentary proof, shall be 
produced, he must excuse me for not readily abandoning, at his 
suggestion, my impressions, formed from facts known to me 
at the time, that the copartnership of Boott, Lyman, and Ral- 
ston, under whatever name its business had been transacted, 
was in a state of very heavy indebtedness ; that its debts con- 
stituted a part of Mr. Boott's personal liabilities ; and that 
great apprehensions were entertained, lest not only the prop- 
erty of the foundry, but other property in his hands, stand- 
ing as his own, and unprotected by the name of executor, or 
trustee, for the trusts, to which it justly belonged, might be 
attached, and taken to satisfy those debts. The amount of 
them, for which he was so liable, I believe to have been about 
$50,000, besides the $30,000 of paper specially endorsed. 

While on this subject of the Mill Dam Foundry, let me 
dispose of one or two other remarks of Mr. Lowell above 
cited. He says there was no bad management of its business 
— or rather, he says in terms, that Mr. Kirk Boott's letters con- 
tain no hint of it, and he would have it thence understood, 
that there was none. One would think there was hint enough 
of bad management, by somebody, in the disastrous state of 
affairs, which Mr. Kirk Boott's letters so plainly indicate. 
One species of it, however, is particularly apparent, — the same, 
which runs through every thing, with which Mr. J. Wright 
Boott was connected, — want of regular systematic accounts, 
and of strict attention to the condition of financial affairs. 

The disclosure, made in 1830, was as great a surprise to 
Mr. Kirk Boott, (his letters show that,) as to me. The sud- 
denness of it would seem to show, that the embarrassment, 
which led to the disclosure, must have been as surprising to 
Mr. J. Wright Boott as to either of us. The first advice, there- 
upon given to him by his brother, was, '^ to bend all his atten- 
tion to making up an accurate account of the works on the 
Mill Dam." This Mr. Kirk Boott mentions in his letter to 
me, of Sept. 26, 1830. [B. App. p. 16.] My answer, it seems, 
suggested the preparation of some more comprehensive state- 
ment, — probably of all his accounts with the foundry, with 
his wards, and with his father's estate. But Mr. Kirk Boott, 



227 

aware, to some extent at least, of his brother's failings as an 
accountant, replies, on the 29th of September, ''if such a 
statement as you have recommended can be made up, which 
I fear J. W. will find almost ijnpossible, it certainly would 
greatly facilitate the settlement. The truth may he approxi- 
mated, if not correctly ascertained." But, no statement of 
any kind could ever be got from Mr. J. Wright Boott, and no 
fitting one, even of the affairs of the foundry, from either of 
the partners. A month later it is still wanting ; for Mr. Kirk 
Boott then asks, can not an assignment be made and kept 
secret, that would bar attachment, at all events, till we see the 
results of the accounts of the M. D. F. ?" [B. App. p. 19.] 
It is not till months after that, that certain calculations on pa- 
per appear to have been shown by Mr. Ralston. But they 
were not accurate accounts, nor such calculations as Mr. Kirk 
Boott was able to place confidence in ; — for his observation 
was, '^ that however well his statements looked on paper, it 
did appear to me, that there must be some fallacy in them ; 
and that, as far as I could see, it was doubtful, whether any 
profit had yet been derived from carrying on the works." 
[B. App. p. 21.] 

This was at a time, when, as the letter shows, the scheme 
of a joint stock company was talked of ; which must have 
been shortly before, or shortly after, the obtaining of the act 
of incorporation with that view. The act was passed June 
22, 1831. This fixes, with suflicient nearness, the date of Mr. 
Kirk Boott's letter. He had been waiting, then, some eight 
or nine months, at least, for that ''accurate account of the 
works on the Mill Dam," to the making of which he recom- 
mended his brother, at the outset, "to bend all his attention." 
He had got nothing, but the imperfect and superficial figures 
of Mr. Ralston. What is the consequence ? In answer to 
the suggestion of a joint stock company, in which his brother 
is to be concerned, he says, "in the mean time some compe- 
tent person should make out a statement of the affairs of the 
M. D. i^." " To accomplish this I am to send down Tufts, 
my clerk, and upon the result, we could determine, whether 
this course might be adopted." And what was the conse- 



228 

quence of that ? Since Mr. Kirk Boott usually did what he 
undertook, it may be fairly presumed, in the absence of any 
evidence to the contrary, that he did send down his clerk. 
The consequence was, that Mr. J. Wright Boott sold clear 
out of the concern^ upon the best terms he could, and as soon 
as terms could be agreed on. 

So much for the evidence of good management in Mr. 
Kirk Boott's letters ! 

Mr. Lowell, after thus repudiating the idea of any misman- 
agement of the foundry, is obliged, in another part of his ar- 
gument, to state a case, which looks very like it, viz. the final 
winding up, by his late copartners, after Mr. Boott had quitted 
the concern, '' with outstanding debts of the firm, amounting, 
after deducting all assets, to $111,188 22." [L. p. 203.] 
But, perceiving how that might bear, his zeal to carry Mr. 
J. Wright Boott through every thing, leads him to throw the 
whole blame of this on Messrs. Lyman &. Ralston, by a note 
in this form : — 

" It is also notorious, that it was from his connexion with this firm, 
in the business of the Mill Dam Foundery, and not from any misman- 
agement of his own, that Mr. Boott sufiered the loss of a large part 
of his private fortune." [L. p. 202.] 

Indeed, by implication, he seems to exonerate Mr. Ralston, 
also, from any share of the mismanagement, and to throw the 
whole blame on Mr. Lyman, '' after that gentleman's lips are 
sealed by death." [L. p. 89.] For he not only shows, in 
stating the results of the partnership accounts, ''a total of 
$66,000 that Mr. Ralston had lost by Mr. Lyman," [L. p. 
202.] but he, elsewhere, is careful to inform us, that " Mr. 
Ralston was a thorough man of business ; but Mr. Lyman, 
on whom devolved the management in Boston, though an 
amiable and gentlemanly man, was without mercantile expe- 
rience, and inadequate to so heavy a responsibility." [L. p. 76.] 

Now, I am no representative of Mr. Lyman, and Mr. Ral- 
ston is not only a friend, and a brother-in-law, but a gentle- 
man, for whom, on many accounts, I feel the highest esteem. 
So I did for Mr. Lyman, in his life-time, who stood to me in 



229 

the same relations. I have no desire, therefore, to institute, 
unnecessarily, a comparison between them in their business 
capacities, nor am I under any necessity to join such an issue 
in this case, though Mr. Lowell offers it. My relation to Mr. 
Boott would have enjoined equal caution in respect to him, 
were it not that I am, unfortunately, compelled to speak of 
his conduct and habits, as a man of business, by the ques- 
tions, which are forced upon me by Mr. Lowell. Mr. Lowell 
thinks this unjustifiable in the extreme, and emphatically 
declares, ''that few things are more odious, in the view of 
mankind in general, or more repugnant to their instinctive 
sense of propriety, than an attack on the memory of the 
dead." [L. p. 1.] So he begins his book. Yet, we see, so 
*' signally treacherous " is his memory, that before he gets to 
the end of it, he does not hesitate, himself, when his line of 
argument requires it, to commit the same sort of outrage, as 
he affects to consider it, upon Mr. Lyman. I charge Mr. 
Boott, who is dead, with incompetency and mismanagement. 
According to Mr. Lowell, ''Few things are more odious in 
the view of mankind." Mr. Lowell charges Mr. Lyman, 
who is dead, with incompetency and mismanagement. But 
who, of mankind, will suspect, that there is any thing odious 
in that ? 

Now it is but just, as Mr. Lowell must admit, that Mr. Ly- 
man should be heard on this point ; and if I am called upon 
to state, I must say, that both of Mr. Boott's partners, but more 
particularly Mr. Lyman, complained to me grievously, at the 
time, of his management at the works, which, during the co- 
partnership, were under his particular charge and direction. 
Mr. Ralston, being in Philadelphia, could not personally over- 
see them. Mr. Lyman's principal charge was at the counting 
room of Lyman &> Ralston, in Milk-street, Boston. Mr. 
Boott's place was at the Mill Dam. He oversaw and directed 
the building of the works, and all the operations, processes, 
and expenditures of the mill. His course of proceeding 
passed under the constant oberservation of Mr. Lyman, who 
resided in Boston. The complaint of this gentleman used to 
be, that Mr. Boott insisted on a much larger and more costly 



230 

and more hazardous scale of operation, than he (Mr. Lyman) 
had any idea of, when he embarked in the business. He 
wished and expected to have it confined, mainly, to a small 
manufacture of grates, for the burning of anthracite coal, 
which he desired to introduce into this market from Philadel- 
phia. But he was constantly overruled by Mr. Boott, who, 
according to his habit, entertained more expansive views ; 
and, since he furnished the capital, Mr. Lyman felt obliged to 
submit. 

Mr. Boott was not even content to confine himself to the 
business of casting iron on a large scale, but projected and 
chose to attempt, in combination with it, against Mr. Lyman's 
judgement and remonstrances, and I believe against Mr. Ral- 
ston's also, quite a distinct branch of iron working, which 
proved unsuccessful. If I may be allowed to indulge in a 
further " reminiscence," I may add, that, upon one occasion, 
when I visited the foundry in company with Mr. Lyman, he 
pointed, in illustration of his remarks, to a certain part of the 
works, and said, " there lies $30,000 !" I saw nothing but a 
quantity of bricks and mortar, forming, to all appearance, an 
ordinary furnace, of moderate dimensions. The explanation 
was, that it was built, by Mr. Boott, for the purpose of testing 
some fancied improvement in the making of steel; — that 
$30,000 (a sum which seems almost incredible, but which I 
am confident was the sum named by Mr. Lyman,) had been 
spent in a system of experiments for that end, which entirely 
failed ;— and that this furnace was all there was to shoio 
for the money ! 

These are facts, which, though Mr. Lyman be dead, and 
though Mr. Ralston may prefer not to be a witness on the 
subject, are, no doubt, capable of proof by other persons, if it 
were worth while to hunt up evidence on so collateral a mat- 
ter. I know nothing of the facts myself I know only what 
Mr. Lyman told me. I have letters, however, of Mr. Ralston, 
not on that particular subject, but indicating his dissatisfac- 
tion with Mr. Boott in several respects. Without midertaking, 
therefore, to settle the question, to which of the three the 
ruin was most attributable, I think I may safely say, that it 



231 

is very unjust to throw the whole blame on Mr. L3mian5 
even if it were not that Mr. Lowell thinks nothing can justify 
such aspersions on the dead. My belief is, that the '' load 
of debt" crept up, mainly, from injudicious management and 
unprofitable expenditure, at the loorks, and by the particular 
orders of Mr. Boott. 

Let me now point out one more error, as I take it to be, of 
Mr. Lowell. He says Mr. Boott was the owner of one half of 
the foundry ; [L. p. 90.] and I have admitted that the legal 
title of the real estate so stood. Lyman & Ralston, jointly, 
he says, owned the other half, or, in his own language, '' were 
to be interested to the extent of one half in the new enter- 
prise." [L. p. 76.] Now so far as the legal title was concerned, 
the other half stood in the name of Mr. Lyman alone ; and 
Mr. Ralston complained of Mr. Boott, who directed the con- 
veyance, for having left him out. But the mere question of 
legal title to the land, settles nothing as to the relative extent 
of the partnership interest by private agreement ; and that I 
take to have been one third each. I state this on the author- 
ity of Mr. Ralston, not as a "reminiscence," but as he stated 
it at the time. It appears by the following letter, which 
bears also somewhat on other points above alluded to, viz. 
his dissatisfaction with Mr. Boott, after the difficulties began, 
and the disagreement of the partners as to the amount, which 
Mr. Boott ought, equitably, to contribute to the liquidation of 
the debts. That is, it will be seen, that Mr. Ralston claims, 
in this letter, that Mr. Boott was mistaken in supposing, that 
he had furnished so great a proportion of the funds, compared 
with Mr. Ralston, as he had insisted that he had ; and, if so, 
he had of course the more to furnish to his partners towards 
payment of the debts. Mr. Ralston, also, claims to have been 
interested one third in the joint establishment, and on that 
ground insists on being admitted, equally with Mr. Boott and 
Mr. Lyman, into the legal title. It also seems, that Mr. Boott 
had, at one time, refused to admit that claim, on the ground 
of his greater advances ; that he had afterwards intimated, 
"though indistinctly," a disposition to yield it; and that the 
claim is urged by Mr. Ralston as an act of " simple justice," 



232 

with no doubt, on his part, that it will be agreed to by Mr. 
Lyman, but with some diffidence of Mr. Boott's final assent. 

I print the letter entire, since I see nothing in it improper 
to be published, or which Mr. Ralston can reasonably object 
to my using, for the correction of misstatements, which might, 
otherwise, seem, after Mr. Lowell's reference to him, to rest 
on his authority. It is simply " a contemporaneous exposi- 
tion" of certain facts in the case. The Italics correspond 
with the underscoring of the original. 

LETTER FROM Mr. RALSTON. 

" Philadelphia, Nov. 12, 1830. 

My Dear Sir, 

I arrived here yesterday, after having had rather 
an agreeable journey, although it rained nearly all the way. Colonel 
Baldwin was my companion as far as New York, and from his friend- 
ly conduct, I flatter myself that he may become a very good customer. 

As I anticipated, before sending on the mortgage, I found my friends 
here exceedingly astonished that my name does not appear in the 
title papers of the M. D. F. ; and as they think so much of it, it occur- 
red to me, that, perhaps, from what J. W. B. said to you, and from 
what I gathered from him, though indistinctly, that he may be of dif- 
ferent mind from what he was before he became convinced, as I think 
he now must be, that he has not furnished so great a proportion of the 
funds, and that he will now consent to do me the simple justice of 
placing me where I should have been from the beginning. Will you, 
therefore, if you approve of it, call upon him, and see if he will now 
sign the deed, which you had the kindness to make out ? If he does, 
to get L.'s signature, also, to it. As we are all liable to accidents, and 
as any thing which might happen to either J. W. B. or W. L. would 
place me in an exceedingly awkward predicament, my friends have 
thought that I ought not even to delay the thing until my return. My 
father thought that I ought to consult Mr. Chauncey on the subject. 
But, upon informing him of the exceedingly respectable opinions had 
from counsel in Boston, he waives his opinion. It has been suggest- 
ed, that if any thing should occur, which could prevent J. W. B. and 
W. L. from placing my name in the papers, as interested one third, it 
would leave a stigma upon their names, that they should have made 
so important an omission, whilst I was absent, and of course unable 
to attend to my own interests, and those who have placed confidence 
in me. I do not think, however, that many arguments, if any, will be 
necessary to bring the thing about, as I am satisfied, and so are my 
friends, that the omission was accidental, and that J. W. B., upon fur- 
ther reflection, must be convinced of the propriety of doing what I 
have asked. 

The paper, which was to have been signed, is in the portfolio, which 
I used at Boston, together with the Thorndike deed. By describing 



233 

them to Anne, she will be able to give them to you. I hope that you 
will excuse this additional trouble, which nothing but the importance 
of the case could induce me to ask of you. W. L. will sign the paper 
without a moment's hesitation, and I flatter myself that J. W. B. will 
also. 

With love to Eliza, I am, in much haste, 

Yours very truly, 

EOBT. RALSTON, Jr." 
Edward Brooks, Esq., Boston. 

And now, having pointed out several apparent mistakes of 
Mr. Lowell, in this part of the case, I should only adopt his 
pretensionary style, if I were to say, " By this time 1 think 
it must be pretty evident, that " Mr. Lowell '' has undertaken 
to enlighten the public about transactions of which he never 
knew any thing, or which he has completely forgotten," [L. 
p. 109.] unless he prefers to claim the alternative of perfect 
knowledge, accm-ate recollection, and wilful misrepresenta- 
tion. Instead of this, I yield to the possibility, that he may 
have better evidence, among the papers in his possession, to 
bear out his statements, than I have yet seen. But if so, let 
him produce it, and we shall soon see where the truth lies. 
Otherwise, I must be permitted to adhere to my former and 
present opinions. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

MR. BOOTT's debts. HIS GUARDIANSHIP ACCOUNTS. 

I trust I have now shown, that Mr. Lowell has not suc- 
ceeded in maintaining his assertion, that there were no debts, 
contracted in the name of Lyman & Ralston, for which Mr. 
Boott was responsible, except such as he had specially en- 
dorsed ; and that I am not chargeable with mistake in the 
amount, for which he was, at the time, supposed to be respon- 



234 

sible ; nor, so far as appears by any evidence yet produced, 
in the amount, for which he actually was responsible. 

There is one other item, however, in my foregoing state- 
ment of liabilities, concerning the extent of which I admit a 
mistake, since discovered, though Mr. Lowell does not correct 
it. Can it be that he was mistaken too ? Or does he, after 
correcting so many of my supposed mis-reminiscences, omit 
to point out this, only because it happens to make against 
his side of the argument ? 

Mr. Boott, at the time of handing me the memorandum of 
1830, loosely estimated his debt, to his wards of the F. Boott 
family, at about the round simi of $20,000. I, accordingly, 
took it to be so, in my former pamphlet, without further 
examination ; and Mi. Lowell is careful to confirm my state- 
ment. [L. p. 77.] But his unlucky attack upon me, for a 
supposed mis-recollection, to the extent of $7500, in the dif- 
ference between simple and compound interest, as ascertained, 
some years after, in the settlement of those accounts, led me 
to examine one of them critically ; and I was then surprised 
to find, that the amount of iminvested cash, in Mr. Boott's 
hands, on that single account, Avithout interest, was, at the 
date of his memorandum, about $9000 ; and that simple 
interest would add about $6000 ; and that compound interest, 
which was, afterwards, Mr. Boott's idea of the principle to 
settle upon, would, in 1830, have brought the whole debt, on 
that single account, up to about $17,000. This led me to 
look at the three other accomits, two of which, I found, did 
not differ, materially, in this respect, from that, which I had 
examined. On the fom'th, there had been a partial settlement, 
on occasion of the ward's marriage in 1826. Being clear in 
my recollection of Mr. Boott's representation, yet wondering 
at the strangeness of the fact, that he should have made so 
great an under-estimate of his indebtedness to his wards, I 
placed the four accounts in the hands of an experienced 
accountant, for examination, with instructions to ascertain, 
from their statements, the actual condition of the guardian's 
cash balance, with and without simple interest, from year to 
year. The result, at the period now spoken of, appears by 
the following letter : — 



235 



LETTER FKOM Mr. JOHN S. TYLER. 

" Boston, January 18, 1849. 
Edward Brooks, Esq. 
Sir, 

It is some months since I ascertained, at 
your request, the difference between simple and compound interest, 
on the probate account of * John W. Boott, surviving guardian of 
Frances Boott.' You afterwards requested me to take the same ac- 
count, and three other probate accounts, by the same party, as surviv- 
ing guardian of ' Mary Boott, now Mary Goodrich,' of ' Harriet 
Boott, now Harriet Loring,' and of ' Francis Boott,' all running from 
Sept. 1816, to Jan. 1835, and to state from them the position of the 
guardian's cash account, with each of his wards, from year to year, and 
the amount due to or from him, in each year, for the cash balance, 
with the simple interest. 

Having done this, as soon as my other engagements would permit, 
I now transmit the several cash accounts, showing the balances from 
year to year, both with and without interest. I send also a condensed 
abstract, which shows, in a tabular form, the results of all the four ac- 
counts. That is, it shews the amount due, in each year, to or from 
the guardian, on each account, for principal, for interest, for principal 
and interest, added, and also the aggregate result of the four accounts 
for each year. 

Thus, for the years 1830 and 1831, which you called my attention 
to more particularly, the statement of the table is as follows : 



Dates. 

1830. 

Sept. 30, 

u 
cc 


Names of 
Wards. 

Frances, 
Maiy, 
Francis, 
Harriet, 

Frances, 
Mary, 
Francis, 
Harriet, 


Cash 
advanced. 

598 78 
598 78 


Cash 
in hand. 

$9,492 83 

9,429 53 
8,968 28 


Interest 
at G per cent. Debt 

5,614 00 15,106 
2,907 05 2,308 
5,763 54 15,193 
5,402 94 14,371 


t. 

13 

27 
07 
22 


Total. 




27,890 64 
598 78 


19,687 53 46,979 39 

Actual Debt, 

6,156 91 15,205 58 
2,871 13 2,272 35 
6,285 96 14,992 90 
5,894 08 14,079 68 






27,291 86 
19,687 53 

46,979 39 


46,979 39 


1831. 

Sept. 30, 

cc 

cc 
cc 


$9,048 67 

8,706 94 
8,185 60 






25,941 21 
598 78 


21,208 08 46,550 
Actual Debt, 


51 






25,342 43 
21,208 08 






46,550 51 


46,550 51 



236 

The column headed * Gash in hand^ is intended to represent the 
principal sum due, after it has begun to draw interest. Thus, for the 
year 1830, against the name of 'Frances,' the sum of $9,492 83 is 
the uninvested balance of all the guardian's actual cash receipts and 
payments, in previous years, for the account of that ward, down to the 
end of the last preceding year, i. e. Sept. 30, 1829, without interest. 
The balance is carried forward to 1830, as a debt drawing interest. 

The column headed ^Interest,' is the aggregate of the simple inter- 
est on that balance for one year ending Sept. 30, 1830, added to the 
simple interest of like balances in the preceding years, less simple in- 
terest on the advances of former years, where they occur. If, for in- 
stance, the day selected for stating the account of the year, i. e. Sept. 
30, happens to show a larger sum paid out, at that moment, than the 
aggregate receipts of the year, added to the sum on hand at its com- 
mencement, this is treated as a debt due to the guardian, on which in- 
terest is to run. This balance, in his favour, is carried forward to the 
next year, and one year's interest is then allowed him upon it ; — so 
that the column of interest shows the result, in any particular year, of 
the interest on the cash balances of all preceding years, added, or sub- 
tracted, as the case may require. This is as favourable a mode to 
the guardian, of computing an interest account against him, as could 
be adopted. 

The column headed ^Deht,^ shows the state of the guardian's ac- 
count with each ward, from year to year, for principal and interest 
combined. 

One other point in the table requires explanation. What I set 
down, in 1830, under the head ''Cash advanced,^ on the account of the 
ward ' Mary,' might well be regarded, since the principal of the debt 
to her has disappeared, as so much paid, in partial extinguishment of 
the larger balance of interest, than really due to her, though not as- 
certained to be so until the final adjustment of the interest account in 
1835. But, by treating it as an advance of principal, instead of part 
payment in reduction of interest, I adopt the most favourable method 
for the guardian, of computing interest against him down to the end of 
the account, because the advance carries interest, while, to avoid com- 
pounding, no interest is permitted to run on the balance of interest 
already accrued, and which, at this time, constitutes the M^hole debt. 
Thus, by comparing her account in 1830 and 1831, it will be seen, 
that, without any new payment by the guardian, the debt of 1830 is 
reduced in 1831 by the sum of $35 92, that being one year's interest 
on S598 78, the nominal advance of 1830. I adopt this principle, 
highly favourable to the guardian, under your general instructions to 
err, if at all, on the side most favourable to him. And I find, besides, 
that the result of the computations, on this method, corresponds, more 
nearly than the result by any other method I have tried, with the 
sum actually charged in the probate account, for the balance of inter- 
est as ascertained and settled in 1835. 

The means, by which I get the data to compute interest upon, were 
explained in my former letter. The same data, of course, enabled me 
to ascertain the balance of principal on hand and uninvested, in each 
particular year. 



237 

[Here follow details of explanation, at some length, which are omitted, as not 
important to the reader without the accounts.] 

The four accounts, as now stated, present the following general 
view of the course of the business : — 

At the end of the year 1817, the guardian had received, on the four 
accounts, about $1850 more than he had paid. That balance is car- 
ried forward, and makes a debt in 1818, for principal and one year's 
interest, of near $2000. The next year he slightly over-invested, and 
thereby became in advance S66 76. That balance is carried forward 
in the same manner, and interest upon it is credited to him. In 1819, 
he received enough to pay off that balance, and leave him in debt 
about $1600. In 1820, he again over-invested, and with the interest 
upon his advances, the aggregate of the four accounts, in 1821, stood 
in his favour about $4600. But in that year, besides other receipts, 
he sold between 11,000 and 12,000 dollars worth of U. S. 6 per cent, 
stocks on each account, and consequently, in 1822, had a balance of 
cash in hand, after paying off his advances, amounting in the four ac- 
counts to over $45,000, and with one year's interest to near $48,000. 
The account, both of principal and interest, was increased in the fol- 
lowing year, and the aggregate amounted to nearly $52,000. It had 
risen in 1826, to near $58,000. The partial settlement then made, 
with the ward, who was married in that year, paid off about one fourth 
of the principal, and something towards interest, so that the aggregate 
of debt in 1827, stood reduced to about $46,000. It remained about 
the same, with small intermediate fluctuations, until the marriage of 
the second ward, in 1831. The payment then made, reduced it, in 
1832, below $39,000, and, after that, it continued to be gradually re- 
duced, from year to year, until its final extinction, in Jan. 1835, at 
the settlement of the probate accounts. 

In addition to the fact that the interest is, throughout, mere simple 
interest, computed on the principle most favourable to the guardian, and 
very much more favourable than the usual mode of computing simple 
interest on a merchant's account, I may state, that, if the interest 
were compounded from year to year, on mercantile principles, the 
result, upon the four accounts, would be an increase of indebtedness, 
in 1835, by more than $12,000. 

I am, Sir, your obt. servt., 

JOHN S. TYLER." 

It thus appears, upon evidence, which cannot be disputed, 
namely, the formal accounts made up by Mr, Boott in 1834-5, 
Mr, Lowell assisting, and I also being consulted respecting 
interest, — presented and sworn to by the guardian, — settled 
with the parties adversely interested, — allowed and recorded 
in the probate court, where any reader may see them who 
pleases, — that, in 1830, when Mr. Boott supposed himself 
indebted on those accounts only about $20,000, (as I state 



238 

from my recollection, and Mr. Lowell confirms from his,) [L. 
p. 77.] he was, in fact, indebted, for moneys in his hands, 
and simple interest upon them, upwards of $46,000. 

Here, it may be noted, by the way, is another fact, serving 
to prove, how loose and inaccurate Mr. Boott was, in his 
accounts and habits of business. For I have no belief that 
he had any intention to under-state, to Mr. Kirk Boott and 
myself, his actual liabilities, so far as he was willing to over- 
come his habitual reserve by stating them at all. Interest, 
not then calculated, he, probably, did not take into considera- 
tion. But even upon the principal of the debt, he was out of 
his reckoning by about $7000 ; which could hardly have 
happened, if he had been in the habit of keeping accurate 
accounts, with regular entries well posted up. 

We are told, indeed, that while Mr. Lowell was a clerk in 
the house of Kirk Boott &> Sons, Mr. J. Wright Boott's ac- 
counts, with these wards, were annually computed and settled ; 
and that Mr. Lowell still possesses copies of them, in Mr. 
Boott's hand-writing. [L. p. 98.] None are produced, so that 
we may see what sort of accounts they were ; and what is 
meant, by saying they were settled, I do not miderstand. 
They certainly were not settled in the probate court ; its 
records show that ; and since Mr. Boott, after his father's 
death, was the sole guardiaii of these minors, who was there, 
out of court, but himself, with whom they could have been 
settled ? 

Besides, the account in question began September 30, 
1816 ; and Mr. Lowell left the house of Kirk Boott & Sons, 
in March, 1819 ; [L. p. 23.] so that he cannot have known 
the fact, of which he speaks, to have happened more than 
twice, at most, during his clerkship. And yet, from the 
manner, in which he speaks of it, one would naturally sup- 
pose, that he was speaking of some settled habit and course 
of proceeding, which, to his knowledge, ran through a series 
of years. 

But admitting that Mr. Boott, with the aid of clerks in the 
house, kept proper accounts at that time, this was ten or a 
dozen years before the period, to which I refer. It would 



239 

seem, too, that while he was a member of the firm of Boott 
& Lowell, beginning in 1822, [B. p. 111.] his accounts of re- 
ceipts and payments, as guardian, were kept for him in the 
books of that house ; for Mr. Lowell furnishes us with en- 
tries, from their cash book, in April, 1822, of some of the 
very items, which appear in these probate accounts of 1835. 
[L. p. 69.] But that firm was dissolved in 1824 ; [L. p. 28.] 
and after that, where was Mr. Boott's accountant ? and where 
were his accounts ? 

Mr. Lowell tells us, that he is informed by Judge Loring, 
that they " were annually made up and submitted to Mrs. 
F. Boott, the investments being explained, and thoroughly 
understood and approved by her." [L. p. 99.] But, if Judge 
Loring is rightly quoted, of what period does he mean to 
speak, from any knowledge of his own ? His marriage, with 
one of the wards, was in 1831. The time of Mr. Boott's 
strange mistake, respecting the amount he owed on these ac- 
counts, was in 1830. And what sort of accounts was he in 
the habit of showing to Mrs. Boott ? If they were like his 
probate acounts, they stated neither receipts from sales, nor 
payments for purchases, but only receipts for dividends and 
payments for expenses. It requires some skill in accounts, 
and a good deal of labour, to make out from them the actual 
state of the cash, and of the investments, at any particular 
date. In fact, the bulk of the capital, at this period, was not 
invested at all, but lay in the guardian's hands ; which is not 
apparent, to an inexperienced observer, on the face of the 
paper, because neither cash balances, nor investments, are 
directly stated, though the entries of dividends received 
enable one, who has skill and patience, to find out these 
matters, by a laborious process. The probate accounts, them- 
selves, as made and settled in 1835, though probably correct 
in their results, are very inartificial and incomplete in their 
statements. This appears by the letters above cited from 
a competent accountant. They would furnish little light 
enough to Mrs. F. Boott. 

The probability seems to be, that, so long as Mr. Boott 
was a member of either of the mercantile houses above- 



240 

named, his cash account may have been properly kept there, 
by somebody. After that, he may have had some memoran- 
dum of his stock transactions, and may have taken receipts 
from Mrs. F. Boott for moneys paid to her on account of his 
wards. He may have had some memorandum also, to remind 
him of the dividends he received. If not, they could be ascer- 
tained from the books of the corporations, whose stock he 
held. With such materials, he was enabled to make up such 
accounts, as he did make up, in 1834-5 ; — and Mr. Lowell 
knows very well, that there was trouble enough in getting 
them, at that time, into any tolerable shape for settlement. 
It is quite absurd, therefore, for him to pretend, that, after the 
dissolution of the partnership of Boott & Lowell, any books 
of account were kept by Mr. Boott, in a suitable state to in- 
form himself, readily, from time to time, much less to inform 
others, how his afiairs stood. If he did, how came he, in 
1830, to state his liability, on these guardianship accounts, at 
more than fifty per cent, less than it was ? Mr. Lowell must 
answer that question, and decide on the alternative. 



CHAPTEE XXV. 

STATE OF MR. BOOTt's AFFAIRS IN 1830. DANGER OF OPEN INSOL- 



I have now shown what Mr. Boott's assets were, as stated 
by himself, in 1830, (exclusive of stocks held specifically for 
Mrs. F. Boott and her children,) and that Mr. Lowell con- 
firms the statement, out of his own knowledge, in every par- 
ticular, adding nothing, except certain reversions, of which I 
shall presently speak. 

I have also shown what Mr. Boott's debts and liabilities 
were, out of his own family, as admitted by himself, and by 



241 

Mr. Lowell, to the amount of $101,000. I have further 
shown a probable liability, well understood at the time, 
though disputed now by Mr. Lowell, for $50,000 more ; and 
I have proved the fact, that one of the admitted liabilities 
was under-estimated, in my former pamphlet, by 26,000. 

It remains to put these things together, with a fair valuation 
of the assets, to arrive at Mr. Boott's real position in 1830. 

One statement, formerly made by me, has been treated, by 
Mr. Lowell, as if I had intended that for an actual valuation 
of all the property, made for the purpose of comparing it with 
the estimated liabilities. This is a mere misrepresentation. 

My statement was this : — [B. p. 39.] 

" The nominal assets in his hands, of every kind, were S2 13,000 
But of these, the largest item, the investment in the iron 
foundry, was of very doubtful value, and scarcely 
available for an emergency ; — it turned out noth- 
ing, $70,000 

And the note of Mr. Robert Lilly, though event- 
ually paid, was quite unavailable, - - 14,000 84,000 



Leaving, of available property, only - - _ . - $129,000 
And of this, there were specifically pledged, for his pri- 
vate notes above mentioned, ninety-two shares of the 
manufacturing stock, estimated at - - - - $92,000 



Leaving free, and immediately available, at its market 

price, property estimated at - - - - - $37,000 

Which was to meet his endorsement of - - $30,000 
And the balance of his guardianship account, 20,000 

And the general debts of Lyman & Ralston, in 

the event of their failure, - - - - 50,000—100,000 " 

I see nothing to correct in this, now, very material for the 
view I was then taking ; which was stated thus : — 

" So that he had, at that time, literally, nothing to show for the con- 
siderable estate, which he was supposed to hold in trust for his mother, 
brothers and sisters ; and was in danger of insolvency, even if the 
whole property of the estate were appropriated to his use." [B. p. 
40.] 

Mr. Lowell, after remarking on the '■'■ assumptions, as curi- 
ous as they are manifestly unfair," [L. p. 91.] supposed to be 

31 



242 

contained in this estimate, concludes with the following com- 
ment : — 

" Indeed his summing up shows liabilities of Si 00,000, with avail- 
able assets of only $37,000 to meet it ; in other words, a deficit of 
$63,000 ! 

It is astonishing that Mr. Brooks did not see, that the extravagance 
of such statements must defeat their object. How have things re- 
sulted ? 

Mr. Boott entered into no mercantile business or specu- 
lations afterwards ; yet he paid all his debts, as enumer- 
ated by me above, amounting to - - > _ _ $167,000 
And left a property, receivable at the death of his mother, 48,000 



$215,000 
And this has been done, according to Mr. Brooks, not only out of 
nothing, but in the face of a deficit, in 1830, of $63,000. If this 
were true, he has certainly shown financial talents, to which the his- 
tory of commerce afibrds no parallel." [L. p. 91.] 

Now as to property receivable by Mr. Boott, at the death 
of his mother^ (and which by the way, was never received, 
since he died in her life-time,) even if the expectation were 
worth, in 1830, the $48,000, at which Mr. Lowell is pleased 
to rate it, I ask, what had that to do with his present assets 
available to pay debts with, and to keep good his trust fund ? 
If the property, held in trust, were to be taken for the pay- 
ment of his own debts, what would he have to receive out of 
it, at his mother's death ? In that view, and for that pm^pose, 
his reversionary interest in the trust fund was a mere shadoAV. 
I do not deny, that his share of a reversion, after his mother's 
life, in certain undivided real estate^ not belonging to the 
trust fund, (namely the mansion-house,) may, so far as that 
went, be called actual property, though to come into posses- 
sion at a distant and uncertain time. But what is that species 
of interest really good for, in difficult times, as a security to 
raise money upon ? 

In the next place, let me call attention to the very curious 
process, by which Mr. Lowell makes up this sum of $215,000. 
He says, Mr. Boott, after 1830, paid debts to the amount of 
$167,000. What these debts were, we find, by turning 
to the " Reply," at page 87. Among them, the reader will 



243 

see is the balance of the probate account of 1844, bemg 
^120,284 55j less $24,000 for the mansion-house, leaving 
$96,284 55 of personal property, due from Mr. Boott, as ex- 
ecutor. Now, this $96,284 55 represents, so far as it goes, 
Mrs. Boott's trust fund, which being passed over to Mr. 
Boott 's successor in the trust, at the settlement of his ac- 
counts, is thus coimted as part of the $167,000 of debt paid. 
To this $167,000 of debt paid, Mr. Lowell adds $48,000 for 
the property receivable by Mr. Boott, at his mother's death. 
But of what is that $48,000 composed? It consists of three 
shares, one ninth each, of the reversionary property, which 
was to accrue to the heirs at Mrs. Boott's decease ; namely, 
Mr. Boott's own original share, as one of the nine heirs, and 
the two shares of Mrs. Lyman and Mrs. Ralston, which he ac- 
quired as a purchaser, in the partnership settlement with their 
husbands. That reversionary property consisted of the man- 
sion-house, and the trust fund. Consequently, the $48,000 
includes three ninths of the $96,284 55, representing that 
trust fund, which sum was already counted as paj^t of the 
$167,000 of debt paid. That is to say, one third of $96,000, 
being $32,000, is counted twice over ; once as a part of a 
DEBT PAID, and once as part of the property to be received, 
by Mr. Boott, at his mother's death. By this curious kind of 
double vision, Mr. Lowell arrives at his imaginary sum of 
$215,000, supposed to represent the assets, which Mr. Boott 
must have had, in 1830, before he began to patj off the debt 
of $167,000! 

Having reached this ingenious point, Mr. Lowell, next pro- 
ceeds to treat my figures as pretending to show an actual as- 
certained deficit, in 1830, of $63,000 ; out of which deficit, 
he says, according to me, the $215,000 of assets, according 
to him, must have been realized ! No wonder Mr. Lowell 
considers ''that the extravagance of such statements must 
defeat their object." And, yet, some of his readers have 
swallowed all this, coming from such eminent and accurate 
authority, as if it were a perfect mathematical demonstration 
of some ridiculous blunder on my part, instead of being, as it 



244 

is, either a very ridiculous blunder, or a very shameless im- 
position, on the part of Mr. Lowell. 

Let us see, then, what 1 did say, fairly interpreted, concern- 
ing the alleged deficit of $63,000, and how far that, which I 
said, was true. 

My remark was, that Mr. Boott, in 1830, had '■'■nothing to 
shoiD for the considerable estate he was supposed to hold in 
trust for his mother, brothers and sisters ; and that he was in 
danger of insolvency, even if the whole property of the estate 
were appropriated to his own use." 

Now I beg to ask, first, what had he, at that time, to show 
for his trust? Nothing was held by him, ostensibly^ as 
trustee or executor. Whatever he held stood in his own pri- 
vate and individual name. Mr. Lowell does not dispute that. 
Whatever he had pledged, had been transferred in his own 
name, as his own property. Mr. Lowell does not dispute 
that. What, of this pledged property, could he apply to his 
trust ? Shares of manufacturing stock, already conveyed away 
to secure private debts, were out of his hands, and beyond 
his own control. These, certainly, were not available, at 
that moment, for trust purposes. He had not them to show 
for the estate. What they might have sold for, and what 
balance Messrs. Sturgis and Lowell, the pledgees, might have 
had to pay over from the proceeds, if he had failed, and had 
become notoriously insolvent, and they had been compelled 
to sell, in order to realize their debts, is another question, of 
which I was not then speaking. This sweeps off" ninety-two 
of the one hundred and eleven shares of manufacturing stock, 
mentioned in the memorandum. We are then reduced, for 
the purposes of the trust fund, to the remaining items of that 
memorandum — the nineteen shares still unpledged, the foun- 
dry, the store, the stable, and Lilly's note. These were all 
the parcels of property left in Mr. Boott's hands, for the con- 
struction of a trust fund ; and since there were pressing 
demands, from strangers, to be answered out of them, the 
question, as I put it, was, what were these immediately avail- 
able for, to turn into cash, if needful, to prevent a failure? 

The question was, how $30,000 should, at once, be raised. 



245 

to meet the endorsed paper of Lyman & Ralston, then about 
to fall due ; — how other sums should be raised, to meet other 
debts, contracted in the name of Lyman & Ralston, which 
were soon to follow ; — and how a still further sum should be 
raised, to make good the deficit on Mr. Boott's guardianship 
account, regarded, on all hands, as a debt of honour, that must 
be provided for in full, even if we, who were consulted about 
it, and the other members of Mr. Boott's immediate family, 
should suffer. For this, I refer to Mr. Kirk Boott's letters. 
[B. App. p. 16-22.] 

The first needful step was, to raise $30,000, at once. In 
this view, I said, the iron foundry, though called $70,000, in 
Mr. Boott's memorandum, '' was of very doubtful value, and 
scarcely available for an emergency." [B. p. 39.] I was 
wrong in adding the incidental remark, '' it turned out 
nothing.'''' What it did tm-n out, will presently be seen. 
But was it available for this emergency? and available for 
enough, with the other means, to prevent a failure, if neither 
Lyman, nor Ralston, who had no property not already either 
embarked in the foundry, or lying in Mr. Boott's hands, had 
been able to raise any thing ? Mr. Lowell affects to ridicule 
the idea that it was not. " As if," says he, " a property cost- 
ing f 114,000, which there is no pretence was then considered 
a bad investment, would not, at any time, have commanded 
a loan of less than a third of its cost !" [L. p. 90.] If this 
were so, will he be good enough to explain what the difficulty 
was, about meeting the endorsements, which so much agi- 
tated Mr. Kirk Boott? — and why it was, that a loan of so 
small a sum as twenty thousand dollars on mortgage of this 
property, being little more than one sixth of its cost, was the 
thing talked of, when $30,000 was the immediate demand, 
and other sums were wanted ? I say twenty thousand dollars, 
only, was the sum talked of, to be raised on a mortgage of 
that property. This is proved by Mr. Kirk Boott, who says, — 
" If the loan is made of $20,000, J. W. B. should insist, I do 
think, upon his proportion to he invested for the heirs of F, B. 
And if this is not assented to, I do not think he ought to join 
in the mortgaged [B. App. p. 19.] 



246 

But, says Mr. Lowell, "Mr. Brooks tells us, two pages 
after, that it was found that $30,000 might be raised upon it 
by mortgage, adding, ' as a friendly, rather than a business 
arrangement.'" [L. p. 90.] True, that sum was, at last, 
borrowed, in Philadelphia, by Mr. Ralston, from a member of 
the Ralston family, on this security ; but it was entirely a 
matter of accommodation. It could not have been done in 
Boston, still less in Philadelphia, as a business affair. It will 
be remembered, that the property was, already, under a 
mortgage of $2500 to Mr. Thorndike. It was only a second 
mortgage, that could be offered for a new loan. As a business 
loan, to be effected in Boston, on that security, $20,000 was 
the utmost hoped for ; and it was extremely doubtful whether 
that, or any considerable sum, could be got, as every business 
man, who remembers the state of financial affairs, here, in 
1830, will readily believe. 

In addition to general scarcity of money, we were all 
panic-stricken with the extensive ruin of great manufacturing 
establishments, and of wealthy persons connected with them, 
which had just occurred. The names of Dover, Ware, Can- 
ton, and many others, that might be mentioned, are an awful 
memento. Owing to the personal liability law, first repealed, 
or rather modified, in the year of which I speak,* a share in 
a manufacturing company was still regarded, by most persons, 
as a sort of plague-spot ; and that species of property, when 
held by individuals unincorporated, was, with few excep- 
tions, scarcely admitted to be security for any thing. What 
capitalist, in Boston, was ready to lend upon it? Mr. Lowell 
knows all this ; and yet does not hesitate to mislead super- 
ficial readers, not likely to know or remember such things 
after eighteen years, by suggesting, with a note of admira- 
tion, the absurdity of supposing that a private manufactming 
establishment, of no great note, and struggling under a load 
of debt, " would not, at any time, have commanded a loan of 
less than a third of its cost !" 

Why even the Merrimack Manufacturing Company, which 
has always stood, preeminently, at the head of public favom- 

* Mass. Laws, of 1829, Ch. 53, passed Feb. 23, 1830. 



247 

and confidence, was, then, in so poor repute, that Mr. William 
Sturgis required forty-two shares of its stock, worth, in ordi- 
nary times, from fifty to sixty thousand dollars, to secure Mr. 
J. Wright Boott's note, then supposed to be a very good one, 
for $21,000! And Mr. Lowell himself, with all his personal 
confidence in Mr. Boott, as well as in good manufacturing 
property, deemed twenty- five shares of the same stock, and as 
many more of the Boston Manufacturing Company, of which 
he was himself the Treasurer, (shares, which, formerly, had 
been freely bought and sold at $1500 the share,) [L. p. 71.] 
to be no more than adequate security for his loan of $30,000 ; 
though, three years before, he appears to have considered 
thirty-six shares of the two stocks abundant security for the 
same smu. [B. App.p. 30. 32. Also, L. p. 29.] Yet, he pre- 
sumes to inform his confiding readers, with this evidence 
staring him in the face, that Mr. Brooks only makes himself 
ridiculous, when he calls the Mill Dam Foundry, a property 
then of " very doubtful value, and scarcely available for an 
emergency." 

What I undertake to aver, as matter of fact, is, that it 
would not, and did not, at that time, command a business 
loan of $20,000. I made applications, myself, on request of 
the parties, to several large capitalists, by whom that loan 
was refused ; it remained doubtful whether any considerable 
sum could be procured upon that property, until, as a mere 
matter of friendly accommodation to Mr. Ralston, the loan of 
$30,000 was, at last, made by one of his family. 

Lilly's note, I said, too, ''though eventually paid, was quite 
miavailable." This Mr. Lowell, also, treats as ridiculous, — ■ 
especially because it ''was secm-ed by a mortgage of personal 
property ;" [L. p. 86.] meaning, I presume, printing presses, 
and other stock of a bookselling, printing and publishing 
establishment. Mr. Lowell may impose on some readers in 
this way ; but let State-street decide to-day, from its recent 
experience, what the over-due note, so secured, of a printer, 
not in the highest mercantile credit, and engaged in a busi- 
ness by no means prosperous, would be good for to raise 
money upon, at a moment of scarcity and alarm, when notes 



248 

not dishonoured, and certain from their character to be paid 
at maturity, have been lately seen, in a time of scarcity 
without alarm, to be selling at a discount of from one to two 
per cent, a month. 

What is left ? A store, good, perhaps, for what it was set 
down at in the memorandum, — $15,000. It produced, after 
some improvement of affairs, in 1831, f 1000 more. A stable, 
rated by Mr. Boott, in the memorandum, at f 3000. It was 
appraised, fourteen years afterwards, at $1500 only, and 
was actually sold for that sum, when real estate, there situated, 
^ had risen greatly in value. [B. App. p. 65.] In 1830, it prob- 
ably would not have brought $1000. Nineteen unpledged 
shares of manufacturing stock, viz. ^yq of Merrimack, and 
fourteen of Boston Manufacturing Company. What were they 
worth in the market ? The following certificate shows : — 

CERTIFICATE. 

" I certify the following market prices from actual sales, in August, 
1830: 

Merrimack Manufacturing Co. per share, $900 00 
Boston Manufacturing Co. " 666 67 

CHAS. TORREY. 
Boston, Aug. 13, 1849." 

That is, the nineteen shares would have produced less 
than $14,000. 

Let us now put the available means together, and see 
what money could, at once, be raised upon them, for the 
purpose of carrying on the business of the foundry, and 
avoiding a failure. 

From the foundry, I assume, that there 
might have been raised, on a business 
mortgage, at most - - - - $20,000 

The store, by a forced sale, might have 

produced, not exceeding - - - 15,000 

The stable, do. do. do. do. 1,000 

The nineteen unpledged shares, do. 14.000 



50,000 



What was to be met ? 



249 

Debts, contracted in the name of Lyman & Ralston, to the 
amount of ^80,000, towards which they had nothing to con- 
tribute, except their interest in this foundry, and their claims, 
in right of their wives, on Mr. Boott himself. Was not Mr. 
Boott then in danger of utter insolvency,, even if the whole 
family property in his hands had been appropriated to his 
use ? 

But, argues Mr. Lowell, this supposes $92,000 of factory 
stock, which had been pledged for $51,000 only, to be una- 
vailable for any thing beyond it — '' as if any creditor would 
refuse to take the right of redemption at its full par value of 
$41,000!" [L. p. 90.] I beg to ask if Mr. Lowell would? 
when its market value, as the foregoing certificate shows, 
was only $27,000.* And I beg to ask, further, whether it is 
usual for a man, not intending insolvency, but wishing to 
preserve his credit, and keep up his business, to sell his right 
of redemption^ in stocks held hy other persons, who have lent 
upon them as much as they will hear ? 

But Mr. Boott shall have the credit of this right of redemp- 
tion also. I will add for it $27,000 to the $50,000 of assets 
above enumerated, — raising his immediate moneyed means 
to $77,000. 

Still, I ask, whether he was not in danger of insolvency, 
even if the whole property of the estate in his hands, so far 
as it was presently available, had been appropriated for his 
debts? • 

For, besides the debts of the foundry, as above, ^80,000 
he had to make good his guardianship debt, which 
I rated formerly at 20,000 



100,000 



* The shares pledged were forty-two shares of Merrimack to Mr. Sturgis, and 

twenty-five shares of the same to Mr. Lowell, i. e. sixty-seven shares, worth, at 

$900 per share, $60,300 00 

Twenty-five of Boston Manufacturing Company, at $666 67, 16,666 75 



.76,966 75 
Pledged for 51,000 00 



Sm-plus value, 26,966 75 

32 



250 

Brought forward, $100,000 

and that debt was, in truth, as now appears, under- 
rated by 26,000 



Total of debts, out of the family, to be met, 126,000 

Total available assets, as above, including the sur- 
plus value of the pledged shares, 77,000 



And where is the trust fund all this while ? Nothing is 
left for it, but Robert Lilly's unavailable note, and a right of 
redemption in an undivided third, or half, as the case may 
be, of the Mill Dam Foundry, subject to the supposed 
mortgage of $20,000, and to a prior mortgage of $2500. If 
we add to this Mr. Boott's own reversion in one undivided 
ninth of the mansion-house estate, (subject to his mother's 
life interest,) which might have been sold for a very small 
sum, we have the sum total of his available means. 

Now I do not put this forth as an actual deficit, which 
events proved; — we know they, fortunately, proved other- 
wise. But, I say, this was the palpable danger, in which he 
then stood ;— and that, with the losses and sacrifices, incident 
to an insolvency, had it occurred, the danger extended to 
the sweeping off of the whole family property. And there 
is not an item, in the combination of elements making up 
this estimate of dangers, which Mr. Lowell has ventured to 
question, except Mr. Boott's liability for the unendorsed pa- 
per of Lyman & Ralston. There is nothing in the estimate, 
which he can shake in the smallest degree, unless he be able 
to show, by some evidence not yet produced, that we were 
all mistaken at the time, in supposing Mr. Boott liable for 
those debts, which I have estimated at $50,000. If it could 
be made out that Mr. Boott was not liable for any part of 
them, this would diminish his total liability, out of the fam- 
ily, to $76,000, and leave, from his aboy^-stated available 
means for the paying of debts, (including the surplus value 
of the pledged shares,) about $1000, to be added to the 
items above named as left for his trust fund- But, when 
the estimated assets and liabilities of an insolvent debtor 



251 

come to be so nearly balanced as this, I ask what, according 
to all experience, is likely to be the result of a forced 
liquidation? 

1 leave the reader then to judge, whether I have not given 
a perfectly fair and reasonable view of Mr. Boott's apparent 
position at that moment, in relation to danger of insolvency ; 
and whether Mr. Lowell, instead of making me ridiculous, 
has not made himself so, by the manner, in which he has 
assailed my statement. 

The '^ Reply" tells us, however, that, to recover from 
such a position as I represent, and have $48,000 left, receiv- 
able at the death of Mrs. Boott, requires " financial talents to 
which the history of commerce affords no parallel." [L. 
p. 91.] Perhaps so. But the talents employed in the opera- 
tion were, almost exclusively, those of Mr. Lowell. 

The first step for Mr. Boott, after getting temporary relief 
by the friendly loan in Philadelphia, obtained by Mr. Ral- 
ston, was, to effect a settlement with Messrs. Lyman & 
Ralston, (who, with their Philadelphia friends, greatly over- 
rated the value of the foundry and its business,) whereby 
they, with some other members of the Ralston family, be- 
came, under a corporate name, its sole owners, and assumed 
its debts. This, as they were not permitted to fail, relieved 
Mr. Boott, at once, from $80,000 of his liability, and averted 
from him all danger of public insolvency, through the pres- 
sure of strangers. The settlement, also, entitled him to two 
thirds of the $48,000 (supposing that valuation correct,) 
mentioned as receivable at his mother's death, since the 
reversionary shares of Mrs. Lyman and Mrs. Ralston, were 
ceded to him in that settlement. This bargain, Mr. Lowell 
says he made ; [L. p. 109.] and an excellent one it was for 
Mr. Boott and his family. 

The next step was, to gain time for the liquidation of the 
remaining debts, so as to avoid sacrifices, especially of the 
manufacturing stock, which yielded large income, and was 
likely to rise in value with returning prosperity. This was 
done through the friendly agency of Mr. Lowell, who be- 
came, at last, the sole creditor out of the family. 



252 

A third step was, to use the family property, whenever it 
became necessary to do so, for the payment of Mr. Boott's 
debts. This I do not say was done by Mr. Lowell ; but the 
greater part of the payments was made to himself, and he 
could hardly be ignorant of the source, from which they 
came, unless he wilfully shut his eyes, or took an entirely 
false view of Mr. Boott's pecuniary position. Perhaps, from 
his present statement, we may be bound to presume that to 
have been the case. The reader, however, will be better 
able to judge of this hereafter. 

The only remaining step for Mr. Boott v/as, to make up an 
executor's account, in a form, which seemed to bring his 
father's estate in debt to him, in a sufficient sum to cover 
the balance of his debt to Mr. Lowell, and to induce the 
heirs to accept that account in full settlement. For this, he 
certainly was indebted to the agency of Mr. Lowell. 



CHAPTEE XXVI. 

AN EXTRAORDINARY SPECIMEN OF FINANCIERING ABILITY. 

The remarks in the foregoing chapter have anticipated the 
evidence on some points ; but, if they are found to be borne 
out in the sequel, they will help, at least, to solve the riddle, 
which Mr. Lowell propounds, and to explain the kind and 
degree of " financial talents," which, with the aid of extreme 
indulgence and forbearance from every member of his fam- 
ily, freed Mr. Boott from the thraldom of debt, and made 
him the nominal owner of a handsome expectancy, to fall in 
at his mother's death. 

But, it is time to turn to Mr. LoiveWs estimate of affairs 
at the same period, and to see what assumptions, ''curious," 
if not -'unfair;" we may find in that. 



253 

He takes Mr. Boott's memorandum and counts its foot as 
good property, (foundry and all,) for what it is set down at. 
He admits, that the valuation of the stable, at $3000, was 
mistaken, and that it was eventually sold (i. e. fourteen 
years afterwards,) for $1500 only. But, he says, ^' still if he 
[Mr. Boott] had made this investment in good faith, and for 
the benefit of the estate, he had a right to charge it at the 
cost." [L. p. 86.] Suppose he had, how would that help 
him to pay his debts to other people ? So, of the manufac- 
turing stock, on the same principle, it is said, he had a right 
to charge it to the trust fund at $9000 more than the par 
value, because that was its cost to him ; and Mr. Lowell 
adds this sum, accordingly, to the foot of the memorandum. 
Yet, instead of $9000 more^ it was then worth in the market ^ 
as we have seen, $20,000 less than its par value. It was 
available for only about $90,000, to pay debts with, instead 
of $120,000, at which Mr. Lowell reckons it. Having thus 
rated the manufacturing stock at $30,000 more than it was 
then worth, and the foundry at its cost, the stable at $3000, 
and the other items as they stand in the memorandum, — 

'' This brings his assess," says Mr. Lowell, 'Ho $222,000 
" He had, in addition^ his reversionary share of his 
father's estate, from which he would eventually 
receive $16,000," [L. p. 87.] and he accordingly 
sets this down at 16,000 



Bringing up the apparent assets to 238,000 

The "reversionary share," here spoken of, is one ninth of 
Mrs. Boott's trust fund of $100,000, and one ninth of the 
mansion-house estate, which, when sold, in 1844, produced 
$46,000. One ninth of these two sums gives, the one a 
fraction more than $11,000, the other a fraction more than 
$5000, making Mr. Lowell's $16,000 of additional assets. 

Pause here, good reader, for one moment, and consider 
the extraordinary concentration of false assumptions in this 
single sentence of the "Reply." 



254 

To begin with the real estate. It produced in 1844, 
$46,000. Mr. Lowell assumes that to have been its value in 
1830. But the same estate had been appraised, in 1818, at 
$24,000 only. [B. App. p. 13.] It had risen no doubt consid- 
erably, before 1830, but it had also fallen back again, as all 
real estate in Boston did ; and dealers in that article will well 
remember its extraordinary depression at that time. It rose 
again, rapidly, from 1834 to 1837. The contraction of the 
currency then occasioned a sudden fall ; from which it once 
more slowly recovered. In 1844, it had nearly regained the 
height of 1836. But in 1830, this estate was not worth more, 
at the very utmost, than $30,000, instead of $46,000, at which 
Mr. Lowell assumes it. One ninth of it, in present possession, 
at $30,000 for the whole, would have been about $3300. 
But it was subject to the life estate of a lady then about sixty- 
three years of age ; and, by the common rule of the annuity 
table, the value of the reversion, reckoning interest of money 
at six per cent, per annum, was little more than fifty per cent, 
of the value in present possession. Mr. Lowell assumes the 
two values to be identical The actual value of a ninth in 
reversion, if the estate were worth $30,000, was about $1700. 
Mr. Lowell sets it down at $5000 ! 

So as to the trust fund. One ninth of $100,000, it is true, 
is about $11,000. But, that $11,000 was a property not to be 
reached, till the expiration of the life interest of a person then 
sixty-three years of age ,• and its immediate value, in 1830, 
subject to that postponement, was only equal to about $5700. 
Yet Mr. Lowell assumes it to be $11,000 ! Nor is that all. 
Its valuation, at $5700, supposes it to be a property certain to 
accrue and come to hand, when the life estate expires. In 
other words, it supposes the $100,000 to be all safe and 
sound, and securely invested. Mr. Lowell assumes that too I 
although it is the very matter in dispute ; and although he 
himself admits, that there was no property, then, specifically 
set apart for a trust fund;— and although it is clear, that 
whatever Mr. Boott held, at the time, was subject to the 
claims of his other creditors; — and although the final probate 
account, prepared by Mr. Lowell in 1844, after all had been 



255 

done that coQld be, without disturbing Mr. Lowell's own se- 
curity, to repair the damage of 1830, — admits the trust fund 
to be still short, nearly $4000 ; and although, as will pres- 
ently be seen, it was, at that time, (1830,) really defective by 
nearly $70,000. Besides this, let me ask, what Mr. Boott's 
reversion, in a fund consisting of personal property in his 
own keeping, without even the ordinary security of a good 
probate bond,* even supposing the fund all safe at the time, 
was worth, as a saleable, or convertible market commodity ? 
What would the purchaser be able to buy, except the personal 
iindertaking of Mr. Boott to account for it, at some indefinite 
time, perhaps thirty years distant? What money lender, 
without any other security, would have advanced a dollar 
upon that? 

But I have not quite done with this yet. Mr. Lowell, here, 
counts the same thing tioice over, just as he had done before, 
He first reckons up and values all the property, of every de- 
scription, which Mr. Boott had in his hands. He then argues, 
that $100,000 of this property was for a trust fund ; and that 
one ninth of that trust fund would he Mr. Bootfs own, when- 
ever the trust should end, by Mrs. Boott's decease. This 
being the case, says he, we must add, in 1830, to the $100,000 
held in trust, 07ie ninth of that sum for Mr. Boott's eventual 
share of it ! As if a share of the fund itself were so much 
MORE property Iff 

Such is the way, in which Mr. Lowell builds up an aggre- 
gate of $238,000, on one side of the account, and says, These 
are the assets ! Let us see what he does with the other side 
of the account. He proceeds as follows : — 

" And what were his debts ? 
He owed Mr. William Sturgis, for Mr. Gushing, ^21,000 00 

He owed me, for the estate of Jonathan Amory, 30,000 00 

Balance of his account, as executor, $120,284 55 

Less the mansion-house, included in that bal- 
ance, but not in the assets above enumer- 
ated, 24,000 00 • 

9G,284 55 

* The sureties were Mrs. Boott and Mr. W. Wells. 



256 

Brought forward, S9 6,284 55 

Due to the children of Mr. F. Boott, 20,000 00 



167,284 55 



Excess, being Mr. Boott's private fortune, if we rely 

upon the pencil memorandum, 70,715 45" 

[Lp.87.] 

Now, here, the reader will remark, Mr. Lowell excludes, in 
the first place, all liability for the debts of Lyman & Ralston, 
— not merely for the $50,000, which have been in question 
between us, but for the $30,000 of endorsements also, about 
which, he admits, there was no question. He, next puts down 
the debt to the children of Mr. F. Boott at $20,000, instead 
of ^46,000, as it really was. In that, it is true, he follows 
me, and I cannot affirm, that he knew better than I did. 
But, at any rate, it is so much mistake and under-estimate. 
He next assumes, that Mr. Boott owed to his father's estate 
only about $96,000, for all the trust property, which was, or 
should have been, in his hands, that being the statement of 
the probate account of 1844, — the truth of which is the great 
question in issue between us. And thus, even if we lay aside 
that question, and take the probate account to be perfectly 
correct, it will be seen, that Mr. Lowell contrives, by reckon- 
ing the assets of 1830 at nearly $100,000 more than they 
were worth,* and the undisputed liabilities at $56,000 less 
than they come to,f to carve out, from these two excesses, an 
" excess " indeed, as he himself calls it, of $70,715 45. And 
this, he says, was ^^ Mr. Bootfs private fortune^ if we rely 
upon the pencil memorandum." 

After this exposition, I venture to hint, that Mr. Lowell 

=* Eeversions, (being assets made out of the .whole cloth,) $16,000 

Valuation of manufacturing stock above market price, 29,000 

Stable, over-valued, 2,000 

Foundry do. at least 50,000 

97,000 



t Endorsements, 30,000 

Under-estimate of guardianship accounts 26,000 

56,000 



257 

might have appeared better had he been less obtrusive, in 
his ''Reply," on the head of assumptions. Is it not amazing, 
that even the most devoted of his admirers should have 
suifered themselves to be led into captivity by such glaring 
absurdities, though put into the form of simple arithmetic, 
and announced with the air of a perpetual dictator ? 

It is true, that Mr. Lowell begins, as if he were putting 
all this forth under the guise of a mere piece of reasoning on 
the memorandum ; and as if that were a statement, which he 
does not intend by any means to admit, but is willing to take 
as mij statement to argue upon. Yet, we have seen what his 
own admissions are, respecting the truth of the contents of 
every part of that paper; [Ante. Ch. 21.] and we cannot but 
perceive, that he, immediately, turns his argument into posi- 
tive valuation of assets, and positive estimate of liabilities, for 
the purpose of arriving at a particular conclusion, thus stated : 
'' It cannot then be maintained, that Mr. Boott had inten- 
tionally used the property of his father's estate in the Mill 
Dam Poundery." [L. p. 87.] 

The pamphlet, which the '' Reply" purports to answer, did 
not undertake to maintain that he had. This is one of Mr. 
Lowell's devices for drawing away the attention of the reader 
from the real issue, by pretending to answer a charge, which 
nobody had made. And, after all, he does not answer that, 
which he assumes for the sake of answering, otherwise than 
by the absurdities above exposed. 

My position was, that Mr. Boott, with good intentions, and 
from the best motives, had gone into this business, in con- 
nexion with two brothers-in-law, mainly to aid them ; that 
he had been drawn in, by degrees, deeper than he at first 
contemplated ; and that, as it turned out, this, in combination 
with other circumstances, occasioned great loss to his father's 
estate. Whether he originally intended to put the funds of 
the estate into this business, or not, was a point I did not 
discuss. I only showed, incidentally, that, upon a former oc- 
casion, Mr. Lowell not only admitted, by necessary implica- 
tion, that Mr. Boott did, in point of fact, so employ the funds 
of the estate, bat contended, that he was justified in doing so. 

33 



258 

Indeed he went so far as to contend, that I had myself admit- 
ted this at the time, and to cite in proof of it a letter of Mr. 
Kirk Boott, which was found, on examination, to contain no 
such statement. [B. p. 129.] The "Reply" takes no notice 
of all this. Nobody, who had read that pamphlet alone, could 
ever have got from it the idea, that Mr. Boott had employed 
the estate's funds in this business, still less the idea, that Mr. 
Lowell had insisted that he was justified in doing so. Yet 
so it is, as he, who turns to my former pamphlet, will see. 

I do not suppose it, now, material to settle what Mr. Boott's 
original intentions were in this matter ; and it may be prema- 
ture to discuss, as yet, even the question, whether or not he 
in fact used the funds of his father's estate in the business of 
the iron foundry, though Mr. Lowell's pretended demon- 
stration of the contrary certainly goes far to show that he 
did. But it is material to consider, with reference to Mr. 
Lowell's estimates, and with reference to proceedings pres- 
ently to be spoken of, the principle^ upon which the "Reply" 
assumes to charge to the trust fund the manufacturing stocks 
at their alleged cost. This question may as well be disposed 
of now, as hereafter, but is proper matter for another chapter. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

PRICE AT WHICH THE STOCKS SHOULD BE CHARGED IN 1830. 
PRETENCE OF MERE INFORMALITIES. WHAT BECAME OF THE 
STOCKS, HELD IN TRUST IN 1818. 

The question of the price, at which stocks, or other prop- 
erty, should be taken, upon a retrospect of Mr. Boott's 
position in 1830, arises, at present, upon the supposition of a 
settlement to be made as of the year 1830, between Mr. 
Boott and his father's estate. 



259 

When a trustee invests, absolutely and distinctly, for his 
trust, I agree, that he is to charge the investment at its cost ; 
and if, by the course of events, without fault on his part, it 
should become worth much less, he is not answerable for 
that ; but, Avhenever he settles his account, he is to be 
allowed what he paid in the purchase of the investment. 
To entitle himself to that allowance, however, his first step 
is to prove, that the purchase was made, specifically, for 
account of the trust. For, if he buys for himself on specu- 
lation, and the article falls on his hands, it is plain that he 
cannot, then, turn it over to the account of his trust, and 
claim to have it taken at what he paid for it, instead of what 
it may then be really worth. 

The ordinary proof, by the accounting party, of such an 
investment, is the production of a receipt for the money paid, 
with the certificate or other evidence of title to the property 
purchased, showing that it has been properly placed in his 
name as trustee. Mr. Lowell does not pretend that any such 
evidence as this could be offered in 1830. Now I do not say 
that no other proof can, or ought to, be accepted, under anp 
circumstances ; nor that the trustee ought to suffer for a 
mere omission of fo?^m. But that, which I do say, is, that 
the burden is, and ought to be, on him, to show, substan- 
tially and clearly, that the thing, which he seeks to charge 
at more than its existing market value, was actually bought, 
specifically, for the trust account, on which he seeks to 
charge it ; and that it was paid for with the trust moneys, 
which he desires to have allowed to him in exchange for it. 
Let us then apply these common principles, Avhich nobody 
can question, to the state of Mr. Boott's affairs as shown 
in 1830. 

It is admitted by Mr. Lowell, that Mr. Boott ought to 
have had in his hands, $100,000, at least, of trust money so 
invested. He only refuses to admit that there should have 
been, as I contend, a larger sum in trust. It is also admitted, 
that he had not one dollar invested in any thing by the 
na?ne of executor, or trustee, or marked by any other ei'ter- 
nal badge of a trust. He had a confused heap of real and 
personal estate, mentioned in his memorandum, all standijig 



260 

in his own private name, as his own private property. Now 
I ask Mr. LoAveli to select, out of this, what he pleases, and 
say what did belong to the trust, and what did not ? This 
burden is on him, when he asks, for Mr. Boott, the privilege 
of a trustee, in charging to his trust account, in 1830, certain 
property at more than its then market value, on the ground 
that it had cost him more. Not one item, of all the property 
mentioned in the memorandum, is distinguishable from the 
rest, except the store in State-street, Avhich was Mr. Boott's 
own, by gift from his father. Out of the residue, amounting, 
nommally, by the memorandum, to near $200,000, tohich, I 
ask, are the ite?ns, that shall be taken to make up, in 1830, 
the §100,000 of admitted trust fund? Mr. Lowell says, in 
effect, that the investment of this fund lay in the manufac- 
turing stocks and the stable, when he says that Mr. Boott 
had a right to charge them to his trust, at their cost, not- 
withstanding they had fallen in value. These, then, are the 
specific things, which, according to Mr. Lowell, had been 
bought, by Mr. Boott, to the extent of $100,000, with the 
moneys of his father's estate, and which were held by him, 
in 1830, to that extent of cost, specifically, for the trust, 
although he had neglected to preserve the ear-mark. 

How can this be? We are to account for f 100,000. The 
stable, though valued in the memorandum at $3000, had 
cost, according to the account of 1844, only $2500. We 
must find the other $97,500 of outlay in the manufacturing 
stock. There were, in all, by the memorandum, one hun- 
dred and eleven shares, rated at $111,000, (the par,) but 
which, Mr. Lowell says, had, in fact, cost $9000 more, 
making §120,000, of which $97,500, as his argument sup- 
poses, was the estate's money. But, which are the shares 
that represent it ? Of the one hundred and eleven, it 
appears that ninety-two stood pledged to Messrs. Sturgis &> 
Lowell, for personal loans to Mr. Boott. Mr. Lowell does 
not mean to say, surely, in order to make up the $120,000 
of cost, that the nineteen unpledged shares had cost 
$97,500, and that the ninety-two pledged shares had cost 
only $23,500. Does he then mean to say, that Mr. Boott 
had pledged, for his own debts, the vejy same shares, 



261 

which he had purposely bought with the estate's money, 
and which he held specifically as a trust investment, having 
merely omitted to mark them as such ? If he does, he 
says a much harder thing than I had ever said of Mr. Boott ; 
because it is plainly impossible that this should have been 
done, to such an extent, undesignedly. Yet, there is no 
escaping the fact, that the ninety-two shares were, and that 
a large part of them had been for years past, so pledged. 
And if we look to the transcript of the records of transfers of 
the two corporations, whose stocks are in question, we shall 
find that Mr. Boott, from the beginning, bought and sold, 
pledged and lent, these shares, at pleasure, and dealt with 
them in all respects as his own. [B. App. p. 30-33.] The 
only conclusion, then, consistent with that fairness of inten- 
tion, which I ascribe to Mr. Boott, and with that perfect 
sanity and clearness of judgement, which Mr. Lowell claims 
for him, is, that he did not purchase these shares, originally^ 
as a specific investment for his trust fund ; and that Mr. 
Lowell does him great injustice, when he suggests that he 
did so, by claiming to charge them to the trust fund at 
cost, and by adding, on that principle, an advance of $9000 
above their par value, at a time when they were worth about 
$21,000 less than their par, for the small object of bettering 
Mr. Boott's unfortunate condition in 1830, on the question 
of insolvency. Or was the real object to make a show of 
assets, which might bring out, more easily, for Mr. Boott, 
the apparent means of paying his debt to Mr. Lowell, 
without seeming to take for it the property of the estate ? 

If, then, the bulk of the $100,000 trust fund was not lying 
in these shares, particularly, where was it ? Mr. Lowell sug- 
gests nothing else, the stable excepted, as intended for a spe- 
cific investment. The store was no part of the trust fund ; 
that was, certainly, Mr. Boott's private property, devised to 
him by his father's will. Was the trust fund invested in the 
iron foundry, or in Lilly's note ? There is nothing else left. 
But Mr. Lowell scouts the idea that Mr. Boott had put any 
part of his father's estate intentionally, into the foundry. 
That $70,000. then, was not, according to Mr. Lowell, a spe- 



262 

cific investment of the trust fund, and no loss, arising out of 
that piece of property, could justly be borne by the estate. 

We come down, then, to the little matter of Lilly's note. 
In respect to that, the '' Reply" informs us that '' the debt of 
Wells &> Lilly was one, which had grown out of advances 
made by Mr. Boott, senior, to his son-in-law, Mr. Wells, and 
subsequent advances by Mr. J. Wright Boott himself." [L. p. 
87.] Here, then, we touch something, which, according to 
Mr. Lowell, seems to have a smack of executorship about it. 
The $14,000 was a debt, it would seem by his statement, 
which began with advances made by the testator, in his life- 
time, and which advances were extended and augmented 
after his decease, by the executor. 

Can this be so ? The note was payable to Mr. J. Wright 
Boott personallij ; and it was assigned, soon after the time, of 
which we now inquire, by Mr. Boott to me, in trust, to secure, 
among other things, Mr. Bootfs oion private debt to the chil- 
dren of Mr. F. Boott. I formerly stated this, which Mr. 
Lowell does not deny ; and I printed the trust deed in proof 
of it. [B. p. 42. App. p. 23.] 

I collected, whilst I held this note, considerable sums, both 
of principal and interest, on account of it. These, by a sep- 
arate agreement, were paid over to Mr. Boott, to be paid by 
him to Mr. Lowell, on account of his own debt in that quar- 
ter, as his receipts printed by me show. [B. App. p. 26-28.] 
And Mr. Lowell, pretending a suggestion from me, which I 
never made, nor imagined, that Mr. Boott had intentionally 
deceived me as to the application of the money, indignantly 
repels the charge, and assures us, now, that the money all 
went, bona jide, to the reduction of his debt ; just as I intend- 
ed it should. [L. p. 96, 7.] I added, in my former statement, 
that the balance of the note was finally collected, and applied 
by Mr. Boott to the payment of his own private debts ; [B. p. 
48.] and this Mr. Lowell does not pretend to question. How 
could this note, then, have belonged to Mr. Boott as executor , 
when he was all the while treating it, and its proceeds, as his 
own ? 

Besides all this, the probate account is, as Mr. Lowell as- 



sures us, difiill account of the lohole executorship, from be- 
ginning to end ; but he also assures us, that this note grew 
m part J out of advances made hy the testator himself; yet 
neither the note, nor a particle of its proceeds, appears any 
where in that probate account. We must conclude, then, 
since Mr. Boott always treated that note as his own, and does 
not include it, nor any part of its proceeds, in his executor's 
account, either that Mr. Lowell is mistaken as to its origin, 
or else that Mr. Boott, considering it, as it was, a poor piece 
of property to hold as an investment for the estate, and desir- 
ing to accommodate the promisor, took it to himself, and ac- 
counted to the estate for the advances, which the testator had 
made upon it, although he has strangely omitted to state this 
transaction in the probate paper. 

We are thus, reluctantly, but inevitably, brought to the 
conclusion, from Mr. Lowell's own statements, admissions, 
and arguments, that there was nothing in Mr. Boott's hands, 
in 1830, traceable as a distinct and separate investment for 
the account of his father's estate. If any thing contained in 
the memorandum of 1830 can be traced, by evidence not yet 
disclosed, to a purchase with the estate's money, for the spe- 
cific account of the estate, it is incumbent on Mr. Lowell, 
who possesses all the evidence, so to trace it, when he assumes 
the right of charging it, in 1830, to the estate at its cost, 
although, it was, then, worth much less. And when it shall 
have been so identified as the estate's property at the original 
purchase, it will then be incumbent on Mr. Lowell to show 
when, and how, it afterwards became the private property of 
Mr. Boott, so as to account for his using it as his own. Until 
this shall have been done, I must be permitted to account for 
the use made of it, by assuming that it was not purchased 
specifically for the estate. 

Where, then, was the admitted trust fund in 1830 ? Where 
could it be, but in Mr. Boott's own pocket ? entering into 
all his aff'airs ; mingled, inextricably, as an undivided interest, 
with all the property he held and all that was due to him, 
subject to all that he owed. In short, it was one hundred 
thousand dollars resting upon nothing but Mr. Boott's per- 



264 

sonal responsibility, and his probate bond, with two sureties, 
one of whom had very little or no property, and the other 
none, except an income from the trust fund itself, and a life 
interest in the house she occupied. 

This Mr. Lowell is compelled to admit, in effect, when he 
seeks to apologize, as he does, for a fact, which he could not 
deny, in the face of the evidence I adduced. Speaking of 
his interview with Judge Warren, he says, 

" I stated to him expressly, that I could not carry to Mr. Boott any 
proposal, that did not include a full and literal passage of his accounts 
as presented ; that Mr. Boott's honor was involved in this issue, and 
must not be perilled by me ; that I admitted that Mr. Boott had al- 
lowed stocks belonging to the estate to stand in his own name for sev- 
eral years, and that this I did not pretend to justify ; that I had, how- 
ever, no doubt, that Mr. Boott believed himself, at the time, to be, as 
I believed him to have been, a creditor to the estate ; and that, until 
the moment of his having become alarmed about the solvency of Ly- 
man & Ralston in 1830, it had never occurred to him as a possibility, 
that in so doing he was jeoparding the property of the estate." [L. p. 

Upon this passage, I must be permitted to inquire, in pass- 
ing, in what way, and to what extent, Mr. Boott could, pos- 
sibly, have believed himself, in and before 1830, to have been 
a creditor of the estate ; and how Mr. Lowell could possibly 
have believed it. The transaction, out of which the pre- 
tended cash balance, claimed by the account of 1844, arose, 
as alleged by Mr. Lowell, happened (we both concur as to 
the time,) in May 1831. [B. p. 43. L. p. 29.] I shall pres- 
ently go into that matter more particularly. Just now, I have 
only to remark, that an event, Avhich happened in 1831, 
could not have made Mr. Boott a creditor in 1830. 

Apart from that transaction, how could the credit have 
arisen, unless from his advancing to or for the heirs, more 
than they were entitled to receive ? In no other form has an 
advance for the estate been suggested on either side. The 
account in question does not pretend it. I erroneously sup- 
posed, in my former statement, that the account of 1844 
meant to claim the whole $25,000, said to be due to the ex- 
ecutor, as having sprung from that cause. But Mr. Lowell 



265 

has very clearly demonstrated that this was an error. He has 
shown, beyond dispute, that the account, strictly analyzed, 
really claims only $3700 as over-paid to the heirs. But while 
it claims this as an over-payment, it does 7iot claim that Mr. 
Boott is a creditor of the estate on that account, since the sum, 
so alleged to have been over-paid, is taken from the trust fund 
of $100,000, which is thereby reduced to $96,000 and a 
fraction, as Mr. Lowell has most satisfactorily shown. [L. p. 
87.] Now, since the executor had no right to take from that 
fund, during the life of Mrs. Boott, and give to the heirs, he 
was in 1830, very plainly, by the admission of the probate 
account, a debtor, and not a creditor, to his trust, for that sum, 
with a claim over, it may be, upon the particular persons to 
whom the alleged over-payment went. They may have 
been, individually, Mr. Boott's debtors for it, if there had 
really been any such over-payment. The estate certainly 
was not. I cannot see, therefore, how the fact, which Mr. 
Lowell endeavours to excuse, is accounted for on the hypoth- 
esis suggested by him. 

The "Reply" is, afterwards, still more emphatic, on the 
subject of the unfortunate position of the estate's property :- 

" That Mr. Boott should have allowed stocks, which he had sub- 
scribed for as an investment partly for his trust funds, partly for 
his wards, and partly for himself, to stand in his own name un- 
separated, is certainly unjustifiable ; and so I have at all times, and in 
all places, to himself and others, uniformly represented it. It will be 
remembered, however, that it was not former!}'- the practice of exec- 
utors and trustees to make so careful a distinction of these forms as 
is now customary ; and that merchants, especially, are much accus- 
tomed to owing, and having due to them, large sums on book account ; 
and so long as their ledger balance is on the right side, no apprehen- 
sion, or consciousness of irregularity, is entertained on this score." [L, 
p, 88.] 

Now what have I ever said, up to this moment, which bears 
so hardly on Mr. J. Wright Boott as this ? His professed 
friend and ardent champion, having been intimately connected 
with Mr. Boott in business, and necessarily acquainted with 
his habit of dealing in this respect, finds himself compelled, 
for his own vindication, lest he should be suspected of aiding 

34 



266 

and abetting such irregularites, to avow, not only that Mr. 
Boott's allowing the trust funds to stand, undistinguished 
from his own, in stocks purchased partly for them, and partly 
for himself, was, in Mr. Lowell's opinion, ''unjustifiable," 
but that he, Mr. Lowell, had so, ''at all times and in ah pla- 
ces, to himself [Mr. Boott] and others, represented it." Yet, 
up to the moment of threatened insolvency, and of actual in- 
ability to place the entire trust funds in security, Mr. Boott, 
regardless of these friendly remonstrances, persists in what 
Mr. Lowell declares to be an "unjustifiable" practice. 

Do not my readers begin to suspect some strange obliquity 
of vision, on the subject of family property, and some pe- 
culiar notions about such a trust, in one, who is admitted, on 
all sides, to have been actuated, in most matters, by high 
sentiments of honour? Do they not, at any rate, begin to 
see, on Mr. Lowell's admissions, some evidence of misman- 
agement and incompetency for a trust of this character ? 

Mr. Lowell tells us, in excuse, that merchants in good 
credit and with a balance on the right side, are apt to over- 
look these little matters, and not to distinguish carefully, 
when they come to trust investments, between their own prop- 
erty and that of other people. I doubt whether Mr. Boott's 
failure, in that respect, can justly be turned off on the mercan- 
tile class as a body. But, perhaps, Mr. Lowell knows best. 
He thinks his readers will remember, however, " that it was 
not formerly the practice of executors and trustees to make 
so careful a distinction of these forms as is now customary." 
I am surprised that Mr. Lowell, a trustee for the public, as 
well as on so many private accounts, for a very large amount 
of property, should hold out the idea, that this mode of deal- 
ing with trust funds is a mere matter of form, or that he 
should think that Mr. Boott, acting on that principle, " faith- 
fully complied with all the material provisions of the will," 
[L. p. 24.] and that he " was, in substance, whatever he 
might be in form, a remarkably good manager of trust prop- 
erty." [L. p. 97.] 

If these are Mr. Lowell's notions of form and substance in 
the management of trust moneys, it is certainly right, con- 



267 

sidering his position, that he should thus publicly declare 
them. But I cannot readily believe, that these are Mr. Low- 
ell's real sentiments. They rather seem to me the subter- 
fuges of an indefensible case in the hands of a man of ability, 
but who is, unfortunately, afflicted with a constitutional 
weakness, which forbids him ever to admit any thing making 
against himself, or his argument, merely because it is true. 
He admits only when he is convicted, or when self-defence, 
on some other point, requires it. He admits, on the latter 
principle, that the practice now referred to is unjustifiable. 
But he admits it, only with a qualification, intended to cover 
the case in hand, — for he says that mercantile men, formerly , 
did not take the distinction, now generally conceded, be- 
tween investing for one's self and investing for others. I 
should be very glad to accept that excuse, if it were true in 
the particular instance. But was it so with Mr. Boott ? 

The first item, (after the amount of the inventory,) in the 
account of 1844, is the foot of a former probate account, 
settled in 1818. The account of 1844 declares, that the 
amount of that old account was, theji^ (in 1818,) ''invested 
in stocks, to constitute the trust fund f^ [L. p. 38.] meaning 
not the fund of $100,000 only, but, also, the additional 
$11,111 12, directed by the will to be funded for the benefit 
of the testator's sisters. I showed this, formerly to have 
been intended, by the marked correspondence of sums, — the 
amount of investments, mentioned in that account (of 1818,) 
exclusive of premiums paid for the stocks, and separately 
charged, as an expense attending the formation of the fund, 
being exactly $111,111 11. The premiums, added to the 
par of the stocks, make up the foot of the account of 1818 ; 
and that account specifies the several investments. [B. App. 
p. 14.] Now how were these several investments made by 
Mr. Boott ? — In his own private name ? or in his name as 
executor 7 

One of the items is five hundred and ten shares of the 
Suffolk Insurance Company. [B. App. p. 14.] The follow- 
ing letter from the President of the company speaks for 
that :— 



K» 



268 



LETTER FEOM Mr. P. W. HAYWARD. 

" Office of Suff. Ins. Co. 
Boston, 15th March, 1848. 
Dear Sir, 

1 find by the books of the Company, that on the first 
day of April, 1818, five hundred and ten shares were transferred to 
J. W. Boott, executor, which remained in his name as executor, until 
April 15, 1824, when he transferred them to Mr. Henry Cabot. 
Very respectfully, your obt. servt., 

P. W. HAYWARD. 
Ed. Brooks, Esq." 

This investment, as executor, seems, by the foregoing 
letter, to have remained undisturbed for six years. 

Another large item, in the account of 1811, is $31,111 11 
of U. S. 7 per cent, stock. [B. App. p. 14.] Here is a cer- 
tificate, which accounts for that :— 

7 PER CENT. LOAN OF 1815. 

" JOKN W. BOOTT, EXECUTOR, OE BOSTON. 

1818. Purchases. 

April 1, From Kirk Boott & Sons, loan 1815, Si 6,577 20 

" « Jno. W. Boott, " 15,420 00 



$31,997 20 



1818, Saks. 

April 30, To Henry Cabot, . . - - $886 09 

1822 
Oct. 1, " Boott & Lowell, - - - - 31,111 11 



S31,997 20 



I certify that the above is an accurate copy from the United States 
Loan Book, kept at the Merchant's Bank, Boston. 

H'Y F. FLAGG, Acct." 

The amount actually put, at first, into Mr. Boott's name, 
as executor, seems to have overrun, by a few hundred dol- 
lars, the exact sum named in the account ; but this excess, 
it appears, was disposed of immediately, so as to leave in his 
hands, as executor, the particularly uneven sum, which the 



26 

tmst required, within one cent. This stock seems to have 
remained, in the executor's name, for four and a half years, 
and then to have been transferred to the firm of Boott & 
Lowell. 

By the same account, (of 1818) $43,000 were invested 
in U. S. 6 per cent, stock. [B. App. 14] So much of this 
as relates to the loan of 1813 is referred to in the following 
certificate : — 

LOAN OF 1813. 
"JOHN W. BOOTT, EXECUTOR, OE BOSTON. 
1818, Purchases. 

April 1, From Kirk Boott & Sons, 1813, S21,000 00 



1819, Sales. 

July 24, To Peter C. Brooks, guardian, $3,500 00 

" " Moses Brown, 1,000 00 

" " Jno. Parker, 3,000 00 



Aug. 24, " P. C. Brooks, guardian, 500 00 

'' Boston Marine Ins. Co. 13,000 00 



S21,000 00 

7,500 00 

13,500 00 

$21,000 00 



I certify that the above is an accurate copy from the United States 
Loan Book, kept at the Merchant's Bank, Boston. 

H'Y F. FLAGG, Acct." 

This stock appears to have been disposed of by the ex- 
ecutor within a year and a half. The residue of the U. 
S. stocks, mentioned in the account of 1818, was, probably, 
in some loan of a difi"erent year, and I have not succeeded 
in finding the book, which records it. 

The only other item of investment, named in the account 
of 1818, is two instalments paid upon two hundred shares of 
Sufi'olk Bank stock — the remaining instalments not having 
then become payable, as the account shows. For this stock, 
since it was incomplete, no certificates had then, probably, 
been issued. [B. App. p. 14.] The receipts, for the instal- 
ments paid, it may be presumed, expressed, that they were 
paid as executor ; — since they would not, otherwise, have been 



270 

vouchers for that account. But it is probable, that Mr. 
Boott had subscribed, as he did in all other like cases of 
original subscription, which have come to my knowledge, 
in his own private name ; and in this case, when the last 
instalment was paid in, several months after the settlement 
of his probate account, the certificate appears to have been 
filled up in his own name, without adding as executor, and 
to have been taken out by him in that form. How this 
should have happened, unless by an oversight, does not ap- 
pear. The fact appears from the books of the Sufiblk Bank, 
<•• which I have examined. 

But, with this single exception, of a certificate not received 
till after the probate account was settled, it appears, that 
every investment, mentioned in the account of 1818, of 
which a record has been found, was made distinctly as exec- 
utor, and was clothed by name, as it should have been, on 
the face of the papers, with the trust, to which it belonged. 

Not only so, but it appears by the foregoing certificates, 
that several of the stocks had, previously, been bought, 
either in Mr. Boott's own private name, or in the name of the 
firm of Kirk Boott & Sons, while he was liquidating the 
concerns of that house, and preparing to pay over from the 
house to the executor. But, when the proper point of time 
is reached, and the payment is made by the house, — when 
he is preparing to go into the probate court, not as surviving 
partner, but iu his capacity of executor and trustee, for the 
purpose of settling an account there, he transfers these very 
stocks, /rom himself, and from the mercantile house, to him- 
self as EXECUTOR, and takes out the proper evidence of that 
new title. How can Mr. Lowell, then, pretend, that Mr. 
Boott did not understand and recognize the duty of an ex- 
ecutor and special trustee on that point? — or that it was 
not understood "formerly," so far as he was concerned, 
as well as it is now ? 

The papers, which I have now introduced, lead to another 
remark. I complained, it will be remembered, originally, 
of the extreme generality of the probate account of 1844, 
as not giving proper information to interested and ignorant 



271 

parties, to enable them to see, whether the executor ac- 
counted for all, that he was bound to account for, or not, 
even admitting the literal truth of every fact directly stated 
in the account. The account showed the original formation 
of a trust fund, in 1818, by the purchase of certain stocks. 
It stated, in a single entry, certain gains and losses on the 
sale of those stocks, but did not show when they were sold, 
nor to whom, nor what was done with the proceeds. On 
these points we were left to conjecture and vague inference, 
from the single fact, that certain other property is stated in 
the account to be on hand in 1844; which property might 
have been purchased, directly, with these proceeds of the 
former stocks, and immediately upon their sale, or might 
have been purchased after twenty intermediate changes of 
investment, upon which gains, or losses, may have been 
made, not shown by the account. The property is not traced, 
by the account, so as to connect its beginning and its e7id. 

The possible loss of books and papers has been suggested, 
by Mr. Lowell, as the cause of so unusual an omission. But, 
if that were so, the main facts could, nevertheless, have been 
supplied, to a great extent, if not fully. The same sources, 
at least, were open to Mr. Boott, and to Mr. Lowell, which 
have been open to me. And inquiry has now enabled me to 
fix the dates, which the accomit omits, of the several sales, 
and to show that the proceeds did not go, or at least did not 
immediately go, into the manufacturing stocks, which the 
accomit shows to have been on hand in 1844, although the 
account, by the paucity of its statements, leaves us to infer, 
that these manufacturing stocks might have been the imme- 
diate successors of the stocks sold, and suggests nothing else. 
Where did the stocks on hand in 1818 go ? The U. S. 7 per 
cent, stocks, at least, went to Boott ^ Loivell, as appears by 
one of the foregoing certificates. And so did the two hun- 
dred Sufi'olk Bank shares, as the books of that bank show. 
All this, no doubt, has its explanation ; and Mr. Lowell, as 
the surviving partner of the firm of Boott & Lowell, can of 
course give it. But why did not the fact appear on the face 
of an account prepared by Mr. Lowell, purporting to be, and 



272 

now represented by Mr. Lowell to be, a full and true account ? 
And why, when the truth and completeness of the account 
are so seriously questioned, has this fact not appeared in any 
explanation yet given by Mr. Lowell, professing, as he does, 
to clear up its obscurities ? 



CHAPTER XXVIIl. 

MR. BOOTt's position IN 1830. MR. KIRK BOOTt's LETTERS. 

To return to the state of affairs in 1830. Instead of esti- 
mating only, as I formerly did, the amount of property held 
by Mr. Boott, which was immediately available, to prevent a 
failure, if Mr. Ralston had not succeeded in getting funds 
from his friends in Philadelphia, I propose now to make the 
inquiry, which Mr. Lowell seems to prefer. I ask, what, in 
that event, would have been Mr. Boott's real position, had the 
failure occurred, and had he been com felled to come to a 
speedy settlement with all his creditors ? 

For this purpose, I lay aside all question about indebted- 
ness to his father's estate, beyond what the account of 1818 
shows. That account admitted a purchase of stocks, for the 
particular trust funds required by the will, to the amount, in- 
cluding premiums paid, of nearly ^117,000; and since it 
appears, that, in 1830, there was no specific investment 
remaining on that account, Mr. Boott must be presumed, 
until Mr. Lowell shows the contrary, to have owed the whole 
of it to his father's estate. To the extent of $100,000 for 
Mrs. Boott, this indebtedness is not disputed even by Mr. Low- 
well. He may pretend, on the theory of the account of 1844, 
that $17,000, of the $117,000, had been distributed. But 
that will appear, presently, to be an mifounded pretence ,• and I 



273 

claim, for the present, to set down, as debt, the loJiole sum, 
which Mr. Boott had invested for those trusts, and for which 
he had nothing specific to shoiv, in 1830. 

DEBTS AND LIABILITIES. 

He owed, then, to his father's estate, for the trust funds, 

formed by the probate account of 1818, about $117,000 00 

He owed Messrs. Sturgis and Lowell, together, as is 

admitted, 51,000 00 

He owed to his wards of the F. Boott family, for prin- 
cipal and simple interest, as is proved by Mr. Tyler's 
statement, 46,000 00 

He owed for his endorsements, on account of the 

Lyman & Ralston paper, as is admitted, 30,000 00 

And he was liable to be charged, for other debts con- 
tracted in their name, on account of the foundry, 
according to my estimate, 



Total debts and liabilities, $294,000 00 

What were all his assets, set forth in his own memoran- 
dum, fairly worth ? For this purpose, I estimate property at 
its market value, so far as it had a fixed market value. Other 
property I estimate at what it eventually produced, except 
the disputable items, Lilly's note, and the iron foundry. 
The former I take at paj^, the latter at its full cost. This 
is, certainly, a most favourable view for Mr. Boott ; since it 
supposes him enabled to hold the least available property till 
it could be turned to advantage, and allows for the foundry 
much more than Mr. Lowell pretends to have got for it, and 
for Lilly's note more than it in fact produced, as will 
presently appear. 

ASSETS. 

71 shares of Merrimack Manufacturing Company at 

the proved market price, $900 per share, $64,800 00 
39 shares of Boston Manufacturing Company, 

do. $666 67, do. 26,000 00 

The store, at what it produced in 1831, 16,000 00 

The stable, " " « 1844, 1,500 00 

Robert Lilly's note, at par, 14,000 00 

The iron foundry, at its cost to Mr. Boott, 70,000 00 



$192,300 00 



35 



274 

Should we throio atoay from the debts and liabilities, 
every things which Mr. Lowell does not admit, (except the 
increased balance of the guardianship debt, as proved by- 
Mr. Boott's own accounts,) it would take from that side of 
the account only $67,000,* and still leave to be provided 
for, the sum of |227,000, with a fund of only $192,300 to 
meet it. 

The valuation of the assets Mr. Lowell, certainly, cannot 
complain of. It will appear, presently, that the two last 
items are valued, above, at about $50,000 more than they 
produced. 

Was Mr. Boott, then, at this time, solvent, or insolvent ? 
Was he, or not, in danger of actual insolvency, even if the 
whole family property in his hands were appropriated to his 
use ? Is it true, that there was no good cause of apprehen- 
sion for the safety of Mrs. Boott's trust fund ? 

Mr. Kirk Boott's contemporaneous letters will be a fit con- 
clusion to this part of the case. The reader may judge from 
them whether they support my '' extravagant statements," 
or not. I print in Italics the parts, to which I desire to 
draw attention ; and I have added a few notes, to show the 
bearing of particular passages. Some of these may anticipate 
subjects, which require to be discussed ; but, in the mean 
time, they will inform the reader how I understood Mr. Kirk 
Boott's language, where it may seem obscure. 

MR. laRK BOOTT'S LETTERS. 

Kirh Boott to Edward Brooks, September 26, 1830. 

My Dear Sir : 

I felt too jaded last evening to seek a private interview with J. W. 
B., [Mr. J. Wright Boott] and my affairs at Lowell rendered it 
necessary that I should get back as soon as possible. I have written 
him by this post, recommending him to hend all his attention to 
making vp an accurate account of the works on the Mill Dam — 
observing that the course proper for him to pursue must depend, 
in good measure, upon the state and value of this property. But that 

* Debt to the estate, not admitted by Mr. Lowell, $17,000 

Debt of Lyman & Ralston, do. 50,000 

$67,000 



275 

the debt to F. B.'s children must he settled in full at all events ; and 
that to effect this, should be his first and chief object. 

It did not occur to me to inquire what are the relations of R. & L. 
[Ralston & Lyman] and J. W. B. with respect to the works on the 
Mill Dam. Are they partners ? In whose name does the property 
stand ? Has any incumbrance been made ? If not, ai-e there any 
means o^ preventing this property from being attached'^ 

I have been necessarily so much from home lately, that I have 
much to attend to here ; yet I will come down, if I can be of any 
use. Very sincerely yours, 

Kirk Boott. 

Sunday, Sept. 26. 



Kirk Boott to E. Brooks, September 29, 1830. 

Lowell, Sept. 29, 1830. 
My Dear Sir : 

If such a statement as you have recommended can be made up, 
which I fear J. W. [Mr. J. Wright Boott] will find almost impos- 
sible, it certainly would greatly facilitate the settlement. The truth 
may be approximated, if not correctly ascertained. The immediate 
difficulty appears to lay with R. & L., and J. W. B.'s engagements on 
their account. For, as they are all partners in as far as the M. D F. 
[Mill Dam Foundry] is concerned, if R. & L. are unable to meet 
their payments, or get their notes renewed, there is fear that the 
whole of this property may be taken by attachment. 

To prevent the possibility of such an event, it does seem to me that 
prudence dictates that they should join in an assignment, provided 
such a measure can be taken without injuring the credit of R. & L. 
Were my mother without company,* I am by no means sure that a 
general assignment would not be best ; but in this, I think she should 
have a voice. I feel confident that she anticipates difficulty, and do 
not believe ih^t finding her income greatly abridged, would very seri- 
ously affect her. But to learn that F. B.'s children were sufferers 
through J. W. B.'s agency, would afflict her beyond measure. I 
thought, when I met you and R. [Mr. Ralston] the other morning,, 
that he assented to the oropriety of that debt's being first paid in fidl. 
At least, I considered his silence as acquiescing, and I told J. W. B. 
that this would be agreed to. 

I had a note from J. W. B. last night, written in the greatest dis- 
tress. He says, " if that sum should not be paid in fidl, I am not 
only ruined in property, but in reputation forever. I am indiffereni^ 
about the future, as respects myself as to the means of subsistence, ;: 
but to bear a brand of dishonor, I cannot contemplate with compos-- 
ure. And besides, if the children are paid in full, and this claiin of 

=^ That is, as I understand, if it were not for the E. Boott children, who, it was, 
thought, must be paid in full. 



276 

tlmrs also,* the whole burden loillfall upon my poor mother, who will 
have means so diminished that her comfort and happiness will he de- 
stroyed, and, if her mind should dwell much on her situation, yon will 
see her health decline — ■ perhaps destroyed. t / do wish now that 
THE PROPERTY was taken out of my hands, to be appropriated as I 
first pointed out.j I am bound hand and foot, and can do nothing of 
myself. It is, certainly, equally for the interest of the heirs that the 
fund left to my mother should he made good ; it will come to them 
eventually." 

I have written to him a few lines, to say that I will be in town on 
Saturday, but how to advise or assist him is more than I can tell. 
Bat for R. 8^ LJ's affairs, I have no doubt that an assignment of all 
HIS PROPERTY, out of which F. B.'s heirs' claim should be first paid, 
and the residue divided among the other creditors, woidd he the 
most advisable course.% I am almost worried out. Committee after 
committee keep corakig up in relation to the increase of the Appleton 
Works, or a new concern, for all of which many calculations are re- 
quired, taking all my time, and, since this unhappy disclosure, I get 
neither sleep or rest, and after next week I shall commence the half 
yearly accounts of the M. M. Co. [Merrimack Manufacturing Com- 

I do not mention this with a view of avoiding any labor, which I 
will most cheerfully encounter, but to account for my not coming 
sooner to town. This state of suspense is worse than all the rest, 
except the fears of J. W. B. as to character. I do hope R. ^ L. will 
not urge this claim, if it can possibly be helped. 

Ever very truly yours, 

K. B. 



KirTz Boott to Edward BrooTcs, September 29, 1830. 

Evening, Sept. 29, 1830. 
My Dear Sir : 

I wrote you this afternoon, to say that I would be in town on Sat- 
urday. Since then I have your second letter of the 28th. I cannot, 

* Referring, as I understand, to the claim of Mr. Ljrtnan and Mr. Ralston, that 
Mr. Boott should pay, on their several accounts, the sums due from him, as execu- 
tor, for unpaid balances of the shares of their respective wives in their father's 
estate. 

t Mr. Lowell pretends that there was no apprehension of any loss of the trust 
funds. Yet this is the language of Mr. J. Wright Boott liimself. 

I Mr. Lowell pretends that tliis does not mean the property, generally, in Mr. J, 
Wright Boott's hands, including what belonged, in equity, to his father's estate ; 
but only the property of the iron foundry. 

§ Who were the other creditors ? Mr. Lowell pretends that JNIr. Boott Avas not 
hable for debts contracted in the name of Lyman & Ralston ; also, that he owed 
nothino-, either to his trust fund, or to the heirs of his father's estate. 



277 

without a very gross dereliction of duty, leave home to-morrow — 
having several appointments with workmen, who cannot proceed with- 
out me. Besides, Mr. Colburn is from home, and I make it a point 
never to suifer both to sleep away from the Works, on any account 
whatever. I will use every exertion to see you on Friday. I am 
decidedly of opinion that J. W. B. should not join in mortgaging the 
M. D. F., unless he receives his full proportion of the sum raised 
upon it, to he applied to lessen his debts to the heirs of F. B. 

I have every confidence in R., but in his necessities he may be in- 
duced to do what otherways he would not think of. I have no desire 
that he should yield any thing improperly, but it does appear to me 
that this debt of honor should he, if only for the sake of my mother, 
taken care of It is evident that a speedy decision is at hand. If I 
can get away, however late to-morrow evening, I will. 

Ever Yours, truly, 

K. B. 



Kirk Boott to Edward Brooks, October 10, 1830. 

Sunday, Oct. 10th, 1830. 
My Deau Sir : 

I learnt with surprise, last evening, from H., that nothing had yet 
been determined upon. Immediately on the receipt of your last let- 
ter, I wrote briefly to J. W. B., stating the reasons why it was expe- 
dient he should join in the mortgage, and begged he would see you 
on the subject directly. I have been very busy ever since then, and 
having the house full into the bargain, must plead my excuse for not at 
once answering your letter. Indeed, I expected J. W. B. would see 
you at once, and thus render it unnecessary. Whatever course is 
judged best, should, it appears to me, be taken directly, as delay can 
do no possible good, and must be attended loith danger. 

Ralston judges favorably of the business on M. D., and I confess 
it looks less desperate on paper than I expected. Still it is an up hill 
business, with such a load of debt. Yet, with economy and persever- 
ance, it may be surmounted. 

I shall be in town on Thursday, till when, 

I am truly yours, 

K. B. 



Kirk Boott to Edward Brooks, date uncertain. 

Tuesday Evening. 
My Dear Sir: 

I was never more surprised than at the misunderstanding between 
Mr. A. Ealston and myself, after a full explanation with Rob't. 
[Robert Ralston, Jr.] He and Ash. [Mr. A. Ralston] took me 
aside in the evening, and observed that, with $10,000, he thought 



278 , 

they might get along ; and as the 'pressing debts were all in the fam- 
ily,* they might be postponed. In the morning, Ash. proposed to me 
that L. & R. [Lyman & Ralston] should dissolve, and that J. W. B. 
should take charge of the M. D. F., and Rob't, the business in town. 
I left him to propose this to J. W. B., in whose presence I wrote you 
my letter. I afterwards saw Ash., and told him only that J. W. B. 
would be guided by the opinion of his friends. The $10,000 was to 
be raised between this and the first of Dec. ; and it was thought it 
might be subtracted from the stock of the M. D. F. No further 
mention was made of a mortgage. The case is so full of difficulty 
that it is very hard to decide. My own opinion is, that J. W. JB. 
should at once assign all his PRorEHTY J?rs^ to secure F. B.'s heirs, 
and next the estate and heirs of my father.! The endorse- 
ments for R. & L, are no debts of his,X and securing to them a just 
proportion of what he may oive them as executor, is all, under the 
circumstances, they can claim. § With the disposition of the Ralstons 
to ease themselves (however natural) of as much of the burthen as 
possible, J. W. B cannot, in justice to my mother, assist them ; 
and however desirable it may be to give time, in delay there is great 
danger that he may not have it in his power to do equal justice.^ 
Cannot an assignment be made and kept secret for the present, that 
would bar attachment at all events, till we see the result of the accounts 
of the M. D. F. ? If Matt R.*^ cannot lose the amount he has ad- 
vanced without failing, may he not, in spite of Ash., immediately 
attach ? And Ash. never said he had power to act for Matt. I 
have no faith that L. & R. can possibly get along without material 
assistance from the family ;*'^ and I doubt much whether they will 
think it prudent to afford it. He admits that the debts of L. ^ R. are 
S80,000 ; and do you not think it probable that they will turn out 
more ? How is it possible for them, with doubtful credit, to carry on 
their business with such a load ? If the loan is made of $20,000, J. 

^ Meaning, as I understand, the Ralston family. 

t Such was Mr. Kirk Boott's opinion. Mr. Lowell's opinion, as he noAv states 
it, is, that the trust funds were all safe, and that the heirs had heen already over-paid 
by $3700 ! 

I Not that he was not liable for them to the holders 5 but that, as between him 
and his partners, they were debts which L. & R. ought to take care of, provided he 
should secure to them, rateably with the other heirs, as far as his means would go, 
what he owed them from his father's estate. 

§ It is plain from this, that Mr. J. Wright Boott's condition was understood to 
be one of insolvency ; that a rateable distribution would be necessary ; and the idea 
appears to have been, that the loss should be apportioned upon Mrs. Boott's trust 
fund, and upon the debts presently due to the respective heirs. 

II That is, that his creditors, for debts contracted in the name of Ljnnan & Ral- 
ston, might, by attaching his property, prevent the rateable distribution, which was 
proposed for the benefit of all his creditors, including the heirs of his father's es- 
tate. 

T[ Mr. Mathew C. Ralston, one of the creditors of Lyman & Ralston. 
** Meaning the Ralston family. 



279 

"W. B. should insist, I do think, upon his proportion, to he invested 
for the heirs of F. B. And if this is not assented to, 1 do not think 
he ought to join in the mortgage. My mother and Ann, with Miss 
K., are coming up here to-morrow. I feel that if left alone, hy any 
chance, ivith my mother, that I shall hardly he able to contain my feel- 
ings. But until some course is decided upon, it would he highly im- 
proper to make any partial disclosures, and I shall put a bridle upon 
my feelings. 

Do decide for us. If a secret assignment can be legally made, it 
does appear to me it ought. Yours truly, 

K. B. 

This is a very disconnected epistle, but I am hurried and disturbed 
beyond measure. 



Kirk Boott to Edward Brooks, May 22, 1831. 

Lowell, May 22d, 1831. 
My Dear Sir : 

Accompanying yours of yesterday, / had one from J. A. Z.,* urg- 
ing me to come down. Were it possible, I would have left home this 
morning. But I have been literally in torture since Friday, from an 
attack of acute rheumatism, which settled in my lame shoulder, aris- 
ing from a severe cold taken on Thursday. This has confined me to 
the house, and still does ; but as the pain is shifting to the arm, I am 
in hopes to be able to see you on Thursday, on which day, if possible, 
I will be in town. I have no copy of my letter to Wright ; it was 
penned in great pain, and under an overwhelming impression derived 
from a conversation with J.,t that L. S^ Rh failure was at hand. It 
was in consequence of a desire on the part of Mr. T4 to discount 
L. & E-.'s paper at the Bank, that R. urged an examination of their 
aifairs. Mr. J. was a party to it, and it resulted in a conviction that 
they were not entitled to a7iy credit, and such was Mr. J.'s report to 
Mr. T. Now such an occurrence as this, in which R.'s statements 
alone were taken, being immediately followed hy J. W. B.'s resigna- 
tion, for which no adequate motives could be openly assigned, did not, 
in my mind, admit of a doubtful interpretation. § Wm. A.|| had al- 
ready made the application, and several others strongly suspected the 
cause. /. A. L. also had observed to me, that he did not think that the 
sacrifice of J. W. B. ivould be of any service to L. ^ R. 

* Mr. John Aiuoiy Lowell. 

t The late IMi-. P. T. Jackson. 

X Mr. Tilden, then President of the Columbian Bank. 

§ Mr. Lowell infers, from my having formerly printed this in Italics, that I sup- 
posed the " resignation " to refer to Mr. J. W. Boott's executoi'shi]). What 
"resignation" was alluded to, appears on the next page, namely, that of the 
agency of the Suffolk Manufacturing Company. 

II Mr. Wm. Appletou. 



280 

With regard to making provision for the endorsejnents^ I am crearly- 
of opinion, that however desirable it may be on all accounts, that it 
should only he done with my mother's full concurrence. That an esti- 
mate, not over-stated, of her resources should be shown her, and that 
her opinion should decide.* 

If L. & R. fail, how is Anne and her children, and Mary, to sub- 
sist, unless my mother can give them temporary shelter ? and without 
SOME income, how is this to be done ?t 

The mortgage of the Mill Dam, I presume, is made entirely for L. 
^ R.'s debts,l and if the property is v/orth only half what they esti- 
mate it at, this will cover any demands they have upon J. W. B. as 
executor. His reversion of the estate, which he says he will never 
louch a cent of, might \)Q pledged as security for his endorsements, and 
in justice, perhaps, this is all that the R.'s [Ralstons] can claim. 

But perhaps I may be in error. I do not, under all circumstances, 
think it vei^y important that J. W. B. should tahe the agency of the 
Sujf. Oo.% My wish would be to have him sent to England for the 
E-ail Road. This would take a year, and to procure the agency of the 
new concernll for him on his return. The advantages of this course 
are, that such a change would turn the whole current of his ideas j 
throw him much upon the world, and afford him an opportunity of 
procuring much information that is wanted, and which would give him. 
a consideration with those concerned with us. He is admirably quali- 
fied for this purpose, and I do hope and believe it all might be effect- 
ed. At all events, it could be speedily ascertained. The new con- 
cern, too, would be a much better field for him. 

If it is necessary to act, I should greatly prefer the assignment at 
once ; but provided my mother is made acquainted with the state of 
affairs, and acquiesces, in any course you will recommend, I hereby 
pledge myself to you to consider myself a party, and to abide by and 
acknowledge as my act, whatever deed you may conclude upon. I 
write in great pain, and in a very constrained posture, and cannot 
take a copy of this ; yet do not destroy it. I am sensible fidly as to 
the trouble and delicacy of this business to you, and regret its neces- 
sity ; but I cannot help it. Yours truly, 

K. B. 



* Wliy so ? Simply because it was certain that Mr. J. W. B. could not raise 
$30,000 to take up the endorsed paper, and also pay his debt to the F. B. cliil- 
dren in full, without encroaching deeply on Mrs. Boott's trust fund. 

t This shows, clearly enough, the extent^ to which Mr. lurk Boott apprehended 
the ruin might go. 

I See note | to the preceding letter, p. 278. 

§ The Suffolk Manufacturing Company, then about going into operation. 

II A new company then in contemplation; afterwards called the LaAvrcnce 
Manufacturing Company. 



281 



Kirk Boott to Edward Brooks, date uncertain. 

Mr Dear Sir: 

I saw R. R. [Mr. Robert Ralston, Jr.] yesterday afternoon, and 
explained to him very fully that the plan he proposed for raising 
money on the M. D. F. could not be assented to. That in any event, 
J. W. B. felt it to he his duty to assign over his property for the 
security of all his creditors ; and that in so doing, it seemed impos- 
sible but the M. D. F. must be stopped. That however well his state- 
ments looked on paper, it did appear to me there must be some fallacy 
in them. Atid that as far as I could see, it was doubtful whether 
any profit had yet been derived from carrying on their works. 

He was evidently seriously alarmed. In the evening, Ash. and he 
took me into the library. Ash. remarked that all the debts coming due 
were to his family, and that they might be postponed ; and that if it 
were possible to divide the stock there into shares, he thought it would 
be possible to induce some of his creditors to take shares for their 
debts ; and that he would himself. That J. W. B. shoidd have his 
proportion ; and that if this were accomplished, he might then hypoth- 
ecate them without stopping the Works, This morning he proposed to 
me the following : That Lyman should convey to R. R. all his in- 
terest in the M. D, F., as well as any claim upon J. W. B. as execu- 
tor, and his reversionary interest in the estate. That the partnership 
should be dissolved. That the stock should be made a joint concern. 
That J. W. B. should take charge of the Works, and R. R. manage 
the business in town. That $10,000 should be withdrawn as soon as 
practicable, to pay cash advances, made by Matt, and that he would 
undertake that the other debts should lay for years, and be reduced 
out of the profits of the concern. 

I replied that if this could be effected without rendering J. W. B.'s 
creditors* more insecure, I saw no objection to it. But that in the mean 
time, some competent person should make out a statement of the affairs 
of the M. D. F. If a profit coidd be shown adequate to their sup- 
port, and to the gradual liquidation oi the debts, it might be a judicious 
course ; but if otherwise, I felt assured that J. W. B. would not con- 
sent. To accomplish this, I am to send down Tufts, my Clerk, and 
upon the result we could determine whether this course ought to be 
adopted. 

Suppose this course to be adopted, could not J. W. B. assign all his 
property ? a course he is very anxious to take — as he fears in their 
distress, tliey (L. S$- R.) may be driven to attach.'f 

Pray let me hear from you. I am obliged to go home to-day, but 
will return to town any time, at a day's notice. 

Very truly yours, 

Sunday morning. Kirk Boott. 

* His wards, and the heirs of his father. I know of no others^ who were not 
creditors of Lyman & Ealston. 

t What did he fear that L. & R. might attach for, except the debt due to them 
as heirs, which Mr. J. Wright Boott viewed as boiTOwed money, for which he had. 
made himself personally liable to them ? 



282 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

MR. BOOTT's position IN MAY, 1831. CIRCUMSTANCES LEADING 
TO THE ARRANGEMENT OF THAT DATE WITH MR. LOWELL. 

From the letters of Mr. Kirk Boott, now laid before the 
•reader, it is pretty clear, how extensive a ruin was appre- 
hended by him. The last letter is without date. That, 
which immediately j^recedes it, bears date May 22, 1831. 

This brings us to a point of time extremely material, — the 
time of the transaction, out of which, Mr. Lowell informs us, 
grew the alleged ''cash balance" of ^25,000 "due to the 
executor," according to the account of 1844. This transac- 
tion is another circumstance, deserving careful consideration 
in determining the reality of that account, and the truth of 
its apparent cash balance. The transaction was, that the 
shares of manufacturing stock, held by Mr. Lowell in pledge, 
for a personal loan of $30,000, made by him as trustee under 
the will of Jonathan Amory to Mr. Boott, in 1827, were, at this 
time, transferred by Mr. Lowell to Mr. Boott, as executor, and 
were immediately re-transferred by Mr. Boott, as executor, to 
Mr. Lowell, trustee, for the security of the same debt. [B. App. 
p. 30-33.] No part of the principal of the debt had been 
paid, though interest had been kept down. 

This transaction, as stated by me, and proved by the records 
of transfers above referred to, is confirmed by Mr. Lowell ; 
but we differ, materially, in our respective statements of what 
passed between us at the time concerning it, as we do in our 
respective constructions of the effect of the transaction. This 
is the instance before referred to, (I believe the only one,) 
in which Mr. Lowell has ventured to contradict, directly, my 
statement of a conversation with him. It becomes important, 
now, to determine, from the circumstances, which of us is 
most likely to be accurate here, assuming that neither intends 
a deliberate and direct falsehood. 



283 

I will fii'st state what material facts had occurred, since Mr. 
Boott's disclosure to me of his affairs, in August or September, 

1830. Some eight or nine months had elapsed. The letters 
of Mr. Kirk Boott, above printed, indicate the state of feeling 
and apprehension existing dming those eight or nine months, 
and some of the measures proposed. The mortgage of the Mill 
Dam Foundry to Mr. M. C. Ralston had been effected, in the 
latter part of October, 1830, as appears by the recorded deed. 
This had raised a loan of ^30,000, which went to diminish 
the pressing character of the debt, contracted in the name of 
Lyman & Ralston. I believe no part of the money had been 
applied (though Mr. Kirk Boott had thought that ought to 
have been insisted on,) to diminish the private debt of Mr. J. 
Wright Boott to his wards of the F. Boott family. A partic- 
ular necessity, however, for some partial payment in that 
quarter, had arisen, about this time, in consequence of the 
marriage of one of his wards. Such a payment was made, 
probably out of the proceeds of the sale of the store, which 
occurred, as I find from the registry of deeds, February 22, 

1831. And that sale, amounting to $16,000, must have fur- 
nished means to lighten Mr. Boott's position still further. 
With these exceptions, his indebtedness and his liabilities re- 
mained unchanged, so far as I know, at the time of the writ* 
ing of Mr. Kii'k Boott's letter of May 22, 1831. Assignments 
of property, either general to secure all his creditors, or to 
secure his particular trust creditors, had also been suggested 
by Mr. Kirk Boott, and by Mr. J. Wright Boott himself; but 
none had been made. The endorsements of Mr. J. Wright 
Boott, on the Lyman & Ralston paper, had not been extin- 
guished, or they had been succeeded by new ones, as the 
above-mentioned letter, which speaks of his then existing en- 
dorsements, shows. The moneys raised, however, from the 
sources above indicated, had procured temporary relief, and 
postponed our anxiety. 

In the mean time, some arrangement, for the withdrawal 
of Mr. Boott from his connexion in business with Lyman 
&, Ralston, had been thought, by his friends, extremely 
desirable, if practicable ; and, with that view, Mr. P. T. 



284 

Jackson and other influential friends, had obtained for him 
a new employment in the agency of the Suffolk Mills, 
then about to be established at Lowell. He accepted the 
appointment to that agency, as Mr. Lowell informs us, Jan. 
12, 1831, but again resigned it, as Mr. Lowell also informs 
us, May 15, 1831, [L. p. 85.] under circumstances, to which 
I shall presently advert. The engagements of Lyman & 
Ralston, involving Mr. J. Wright Boott, had begun to press 
again, with renewed urgency. Their failure, notwithstand- 
ing all that had been done, was supposed to be at hand. This 
appears by the last mentioned letter of Mr. Kirk Boott. 
Whether the failure of Mr. J. Wright Boott, who was not an 
ostensible partner in their firms, though an endorser of some 
of their paper, and implicated in all their engagements con- 
nected with the business of the foundry, must necessarily 
follow, or at what sacrifice of other interests in his hands it 
might be prevented, were serious questions, which Mr. Kirk 
Boott and myself were compelled to consider. Mr. Lowell 
became a party, with us, to the consultations of that period. 
Mr. P. T. Jackson, also, from the interest he took in Mr. J. 
Wright Boott, and in the Suffolk agency, was partially ad- 
mitted to our counsel. At this juncture, Mr. Kirk Boott 
wrote to me the letter of May 22, 1831, which the reader 
has already read. It will be remembered, that instant failure 
of Lyman & Ralston was therein apprehended ; that an as- 
signment of all Mr. J. Wright Boott's property, had been 
recommended, " first to secure F. B.'s heirs, and next the 
estate and heirs of my father ;^' and that the letter concludes 
as follows : — 

"If it is necessary to act, I should greatly prefer the assignment at 
once ; but provided my mother is made acquainted with the state of 
affairs, and acquiesces in any course you will recommend, / hereby 
pledge myself to you to consider myself a party, and to abide by and 
acknowledge as my act, whatever deed you may conclude upon. I 
write in great pain, and in a very constrained posture, and cannot 
take a copy of this ; yet do not destroy it. I am sensible fully as to 
the trouble and delicacy of this business to you^ and regret its neces- 
sity ; but I cannot help it. Yours, truly, 

K. B." 



285 

Thus, it is seen, that, owing to Mr. Kirk Boott's confine- 
ment at Lowell by illness, the delicate task was thrown 
upon me, alone, of determining what should be done, in these 
alarming circumstances, to preserve the family interests, and 
to shield Mr. J. Wright Boott, as far as circumstances would 
permit. 

It should be borne in mind, that, during all this time, no 
further disclosure had been made by Mr. J. Wright Boott to 
me, since that of August or September, 1830, respecting the 
condition of his father's estate, nor had any been made to 
Mr. Kirk Boott, as I think I am authorized to say, from the 
very confidential intercourse between us on these subjects. 

Mr. Lowell, indeed, endeavours to throw some of my state- 
ments on this head into doubt, when he protests against my 
use of Mr. Kirk Boott's name, and says, " Mr. Brooks will 
hardly claim a more intimate acquaintance v/ith Mr. Kirk 
Boott's views and feelings than I enjoyed." [L. p. 196.] On 
most subjects, certainly not — particularly not in relation to 
matters of business with strangers, and topics connected with 
the kind of business, in which both Mr. Kirk Boott and Mr. 
Lowell were engaged. But, in regard to mere family inter- 
ests, and to the relations of Mr. J. Wright Boott to others of 
his own family, and with regard to his general position and 
conduct as the family trustee, circumstances of common con- 
cern, added to long personal friendship, had established be- 
tween me and that gentleman, an especial confidence and 
freedom of communication, which it would have been very 
strange, if he had imparted, with equal facility, to Mr. Lov/ell, 
or to any other friend out of the family. 

The letters, which I exhibit, sufficiently vouch for what I 
now say. On all that class of subjects, I may safely claim 
to know what Mr. Kirk Boott knew and thought, as far as 
one man can ever claim such knowledge from great intimacy 
with another, distinguished for his frank character and hon- 
ourable dealing. And I undertake to say, with perfect confi- 
dence, that Mr. Kirk Boott was no more informed than my- 
self, by any communication of that period from Mr. J. Wright 
Boott, respecting the amount of his indebtedness to his 



286 



father's estate and the condition of the family property. To 
believe otherwise, considering what has passed between us, 
would be a reflection on the memory of Mr. Kirk Boott. 

It will not be pretended, that any heir, or member of the 
family, except Mr. J. Wright Boott himself, knew more than 
we did. Such were his peculiarities, and the feelings of the 
family towards him, that nobody attempted to penetrate his 
reserve. It would not have become me, certainly, to approach 
nearer than his own brother, who was an older man than my- 
self and of more experience in business. We, all, habitually, 
waited Mr. J. Wright Boott's voluntary movements respecting 
family affairs. 

What then was the extent of my knowledge of the amount 
of the family property ? On the evening of my marriage, Mr. 
Boott had volunteered to inform me, that I might shortly ex- 
pect about $20,000 in my wife's right. He had, on several 
occasions, given like information of a prospective dividend to 
other heirs ; and all the unmarried members of the family had 
been given to understand, that their personal allowance for 
income was $1200 a year — the interest of $20,000. They 
lived, accordingly, in that belief. I had reason to believe, 
though never informed of the fact by Mr. J. Wright Boott, 
that more than one of the heirs had, long before that period, 
realized the full dividend of $20,000. To me, Mr. Boott had 
paid, by note, and to Messrs. Lyman & Ralston in money, 
$10,000 each, expressly on account. The provisions of the 
will, appropriating, for the support of Mrs. Boott and of the 
testator's sisters, $111,000, indivisible during their lives, were, 
of course, matters of notoriety. 

I knew, besides, from Mr. Kirk Boott, that heavy losses 
had been sustained by the former house, in which he and Mr. 
James Boott had formerly been partners with Mr. J. Wright 
Boott. The amount of these losses I did not know, nor what 
amount of private fortune, previously acquired, Mr. J. Wright 
Boott might have had to draw upon against these losses. 
But, from the disclosure made in 1830, it had become appa- 
rent to me, and to Mr. Kirk Boott, that, after accounting for 
the unpaid residue of the paternal estate, as it had always 



287 

been understood and represented in the family, there was not 
only no private fortune left to Mr. J. Wright Boott, (unless in 
reversion,) but that more or less of funds of the estate had gone 
into the business of the Mill Dam Foundry, and that it was 
impossible, that this business should be wound up, in any 
way, without great loss to the family property. The fear, as 
the letters above cited show, was, that the loss might extend 
even to the destruction of the particular trust fund, on which 
Mrs. Boott was dependent. 

Most of the foregoing statements, I am aware, are impugned 
by Mr. Lowell. I shall not omit to consider his comments 
upon them. But at present, I allude to these matters of 
fact, in anticipation, only for the piu-pose of showing, what 
the knowledge, or understanding, on my part, was, of the 
amount of property, for which Mr. Boott was probably ac- 
countable as executor, when I was called upon, in May, 
1831, to act, as I did act, under Mr. Kirk Boott's last cited 
letter. 

Mr. Lowell, when taken into the family counsel respecting 
Mr. J. Wright Boott's affairs, was, undoubtedly, informed, I 
will not say of all the above particulars, but generally in- 
formed, at least, of the belief entertained by Mr. Kirk Boott 
and myself, that the estate was implicated to a dangerous 
extent, and that the loss, to be met, must be greatly beyond 
any private fortune of Mr. J. Wright Boott. This informa- 
tion Mr. Lowell certainly had from us, in addition to any 
knowledge of the family property, or of Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
own property, which he may have derived from his former 
connexion in business with that gentleman. And I must 
say, that there was no pretence, at that time, on his part, 
that our belief was not well founded. We heard nothing, 
then, of over-payment to the heirs, nor of the sufficiency of 
Mr. J. Wright Boott's private property to stand all the sup- 
posed, or anticipated loss. 

In fear of a failure, the object I had to accomplish, plainly 
was, to disentangle, as far as possible, the affairs of the estate 
from the private affairs of Mr. J. Wright Boott, and to set 
apart, specifically, for the estate, and for his wards, (to whom 



288 

the estate stood surety,) such suitable portion, as the case 
would permit, of the property in his hands, the whole of 
which was then, equally, exposed to be taken by general 
creditors, for want of any thing to mark any part of it as a 
trust. Of all the items in Mr. Boott's memorandum, of 1830, 
it has been seen, that, upon the question, what was Mr. 
Boott's and what the estate's, one only could be distin- 
guished, — the store, which was Mr. Boott's own. This had 
now, in May, 1831, been sold, and its proceeds had been ap- 
plied, as Mr. Boott had seen fit. 

In respect to the foundry, if the whole, or any part, of the 
$70,000 and more, which had, at that time, gone into it, 
were considered to have come from the estate, still, it was 
certain, that the employment of the estate's funds in that 
trade, by an executor, was wholly unauthorized. The adop- 
tion of that act, in behalf of the estate, could not be thought 
of for a moment, by Mr. Kirk Boott, or by me ; and the prop- 
erty itself, (an undivided interest, subject to two mortgages, 
and, equitably as well as legally, bound for all the debts and 
liabilities of a partnership supposed to be insolvent,) was a 
thing to be especially avoided for a trust investment. At 
Avhatever loss to the estate, this investment of $70,000 must, 
of necessity, as we thought, be set to the separate account 
of Mr. J. Wright Boott — making, with the $16,000 reahzed 
from the sale of the store, a nominal property of $86,000 to 
be treated as his. This is a considerably larger sum, than 
Mr. Lowell pretends, that Mr. Boott was ever worth. It 
followed, that all the remaining property, named in the 
memorandum, must be set apart to represent his several 
trusts, as executor of his father's will and guardian of the 
F. Boott children ; and that, if it were all clear of any private 
incumbrance, it would still be greatly insufficient to make 
good the debt to his father's estate, according to the ideas of 
the estate, which Mr. Boott had uniformly held out ; and 
since it was understood that the estate must answer, also, as 
Mr. Boott's surety, for the debt due to his wards, it was plain, 
that all this property, clear of incumbrance, would fail to pay 
off that debt, and leave enough to reconstruct the particular 



289 

trust funds, established in 1818, agreeably to his father's will, 
but afterwards broken up. 

This I propose to make clear — because it is a key to the' 
subsequent proceedings. What was the property I speak of? 
The manufacturing stock, Lilly's note, and the stable. What 
was it all worth at the time, of which I speak? 

The market value of the manufacturing stock had risen 
considerably since August, 1830, as appears by the following 
certificate. 

CERTIFICATE. 

" I certify the following market prices from actual sales, in May, 
1831:— 

Merrimack Manufacturing Co. per share, SI 160 00 
Boston Manufacturing Co. " 700 00 

The Merrimack sale was dividend on. That is, the dividend, then 
declared, was sold with the shares. 

CHAS. TORREY. 
Boston, Aug. 13, 1849." 

Lilly's note had, at this time, been reduced by a partial 
payment of $966 61, (See Trust Deed, B. App. p. 23.) and 
had also been strengthened by a new collateral security, 
namely, a second mortgage made in October, 1830. of a 
building near Boylston Market Place, in which the printing 
office, formerly of Wells & Lilly, had been kept, and a mort- 
gage of certain articles of personal property appertaining to 
that establishment. This appears by the recorded deed. 
Notwithstanding this new security, the note was worth con- 
siderably less than its face, as the event proved. 

I formerly stated, that it was eventually paid in full ; 
which I then supposed to be the fact. Mr. Lowell takes care 
to follow my error, instead of correcting it, as he affects to 
have done in so many other cases of supposed errors com- 
mitted by me. He states, positively, that it was paid in full. 
[L. p. 86.] From the evidence, which has recently come to 
my knowledge, it seems that this is another of Mr. Lowell's 
mistakes. 

I formerly showed that the note was held by me in trust 
for several years, during which interest was kept down, and 

37 



290 

some partial payments were made on account of principal ; 
and that, about the time of the settlement of Mr. Boott's guar- 
dianship accounts, I restored the note to him. [B. p. 47-49. 
App. 26-28.] Never having heard the contrary, I supposed 
the balance had been paid to Mr. Boott, at or about the time 
of the settlement of his guardianship accounts, early in 1835. 
[B. p. 48.] But, I have recently discovered, that in October, 
1835, Mr. Boott sold the note and mortgage, through a 
broker, to Mr. John Welch. The deed of assignment is 
*^ recorded in the registry of deeds, and contains a special 
warranty from Mr. Boott, '' that the sum of eight thousand 
dollars, or upwards, is legally due to me by virtue of the said 
note." It happens, that a suit is now pending, in the State 
of Maine, in which this transaction has become, incidentally, 
involved, and Mr. Welch, in an answer to a bill in chancery, 
states that, '' some payments having been made on said 
mortgage, it was, at the time of the negotiation with said 
Abbott, [shortly after the sale to Mr. Welch] valued and cal- 
culated to be worth the sum of $8500"; — meaning, as I 
understand, that this was the amount due upon the mortgage. 
On application to Mr. Welch, I have obtained from him the 
following certificate, endorsed on an office copy of the deed 
of assignment. 

MR. WELCH'S CERTIFICATE. 

" For the purpose of strengthening my title to the real estate re- 
ferred to within, I purchased from Mr. J. W. Boott, this assignment 
of Robert Lilly's note, and the mortgage to secure the same, and paid 
him therefor the sum of $5500, October 6, 1835. 

John Welch." 

Boston, June 4, 1849." 

This note Mr. Lowell represents, even before the mortgage 
of the real estate had been made, to have been such a perfect 
security, that he ridicules me for speaking of it as unavail- 
able for an emergency, [L. p. 90.] though I supposed it to 
have been, as Mr. Lowell affirms it was, [L. p. 86.] event- 
ually, paid in full. It now appears that this same note was, 
in fact, sold by Mr. Boott, ivith the mortgage, at a discount 
of about $3000 from its face, after the debt had been reduced 



291 

to about $8500. It cannot be taken, then, to have been 
fairly worth, in May, 1831, more than it afterwards produced 
to Ml'. Boott. The note originally was for |14,000; the 
partial payment, which had been endorsed before its assign- 
ment to me, was $966 61, leaving due, according to the face 
of the note, in May, 1831, $13,083 39 

The discount made, upon its eventual sale to 

Mr. Welch, appears to have been 3,000 00 



I estimate it, therefore, in May, 1831, at 10,083 39 

The stable remained as it was at the time of Mr. Boott's 

memorandum, and cannot be set down for more than it 

actually produced many years later. 

It is now easy to get at the aggregate outside value of all 

the property left in Mr. Boott's hands, except his interest in 

the foundry, at the date of the transaction under discussion. 

72 Shares of Merrimack Manufacturing Company 
at their then market price, (dividend included,) 
as certified above, $1160 00 per share, $83,520 00 

39 Shares of Boston Manufacturing Company, 

$700 per share, 27,300 00 

Lilly's note, at what it eventually produced, 10,083 39 

The stable, do. 1,500 00 



Total, 122,403 39 

Oat of this property the estate was, first, to be relieved of 
its suretyship to Mr. Boott's wards. That debt, in 1831, 
after the partial payment to the ward then married, was still, 
as the probate accounts show, according to Mr. Tyler's state- 
ment from them, nearly ^39,000. Deducting that from the 
foregoing sum, it would leave, to cover all that Mr. Boott 
may have owed to the estate, only about $83,000.=^ Bat the 
particular trust funds, formed by the account of 1818, after- 
wards broken up, and now to be replaced, supposing that 
were all he owed to the estate, were $111,111 12. There 

*1 22,000 00 
39,000 00 



83,000 00 



292 

would be a plain deficiency then, if all this property were 
so applied, upon the particular trust funds alone, of nearly 
$28,000,* and even the $100,000, required to be set apart 
for the support of Mrs. Boott, if all else were disregarded, 
could not be made good by about $17,000.1 This is not all. 
The foregoing statement supposes all this property clear of 
incumbrance. But, unfortunately, the greater part of it was 
pledged, for Mr. Boott's private loans from Messrs. Sturgis 
and Lowell, for $51,000. Whether the stocks so pledged 
•^had been originally purchased with the funds of the estate 
or not, these gentlemen were supposed to know nothing of 
that. They took the stocks, standing in Mr. Boott's name, 
as Mr. Bootfs; and, if they had no reason to think other- 
wise, they could not be deprived of their security. It was 
useless, then, to speculate, for the purpose of such a partial 
adjustment of affairs, as circumstances would permit to be 
made, upon the question, how much Mr. Boott might owe to 
his father's estate and had never accounted for ; since, with 
the pledges he had made of the property in his hands, and 
after deducting the amount of debt to his wards, for which 
he had bound the estate, (his father having been a co-obligor 
in the guardianship bond,) even his mother's trust fund was 
deficient by almost $70,000 ! % 

In short, the foundry, with its embarrassments, being re- 
jected for the estate, even if he could have succeeded, by a 
sale of the foundry, in redeeming the stocks from his private 
pledges, all the property left would not suffice, by a consid- 
erable sum, to pay his wards, and make good the sum of 
$100,000 for his mother. 



*1 11,000 00 
83,000 00 


dged, - 


1100,000 00 
83,000 00 


28,000 00 

t Property, 

Debts for which it was pie 


17,000 00 
122,000 00 
51,000 00 


Nett, - - - - 
Debt to the wards, - . . . 


71,000 00 
39,000 00 


Balance towards Mrs. Boott's §100,000, 
Deficiency, . . - - . 


32,000 00 
68,000 00 



293 



CHAPTER XXX. 

THE AGREEMEOT? OF MAY, 1831. MR. LOWELL's MISTAKE, WITH 
A CIRCUMSTANCE. 

The last chapter has disclosed the state of Mr. J. Wright 
Boott's affairs, at the time when the transaction occurred, 
about which Mr. Lowell and I now differ. What I deter- 
mined to advise, and, if possible, to effect, under the request 
in Mr. Kirk Boott's letter, was, to have all the property above- 
mentioned, except the foundry, turned over as trust property, 
and ear-marked as such. To this Mr. J. Wright Boott, on my 
representations of the necessity, readily assented. Pledged 
or unpledged, redeemed in future or not, it was all so largely 
deficient for the required purpose, that there was nothing to 
discuss in the case. 

What was done, in fact, appears as follows : Mr. Kirk Boott's 
letter, above cited, was received May 22. On the 23d and 
24th of May, the transfer and retransfer, above-mentioned, by 
and to Mr. Lowell, were made and recorded, whereby the 
fifty shares of manufactming stock held in pledge by him as 
the individual property of Mr. Boott, were marked as the 
property of Mr. Boott, i?i his capacity of executor. [See rec- 
ords of transfers, B. App. pp. 31. 33.] On the 28th of May, 
a similar arrangement having been effected with Mr. Stm'gis, 
the forty-two shares held by that gentleman were, by a like 
transfer and retransfer, similarly marked. [See records as 
above.] On the 26th of May, Mr. Boott executed a deed, 
duly recorded, by which the stable was declared to be held 
by him as executor. [B. App. p. 24.] On the 23d of May, 
Lilly's note, and all the unpledged manufacturing stock, were 
conveyed to me in trust, fii'st, to secure any balances that 
might be found due from Mr. Boott to his wards on the final 
settlement of his guardianship accounts ; secondly, to hold 



294 

the residue, subject to his order as executor^ for the purpose 
of discharging, so far as it might, the indebtedness to his 
father's estate, which the instrument expressly declares. [B. 
App. p. 23.] None of these facts are disputed by Mr. Low- 
ell, though the last is one, which he takes care not to notice. 
The dispositions above-mentioned, it will be perceived, take 
up all the property described in Mr. Boott's memorandum, ex- 
cept the foundry and the store, which last had been lately sold. 

The reader will now be prepared to understand the precise 
^ issue between Mr. Lowell and myself on this point, as it ap- 
pears by the following extracts. 

Tn my former pamphlet, after describing the transfer and 
retransfer by and to Mr. Lowell, I remarked : — 

"The object of this arrangement was, to prevent the attachment of 
said shares, by any creditor of Mr. Wright Boott, for their value 
above the debt to Mr. Lowell. It was made in consequence of a con- 
versation between Mr. Lowell and myself, in which we agreed that 
the shares pledged to him, although standing at the time in the name 
of Mr. Wright Boott, were, in reality, a part of the assets of his 
father's estate, and the ahove was the best expedient we could think 
of to remedy the mischief, so far as to secure them against any other 
creditor than Mr. Lowell himself." [B. p. 43.] 

Mr. Lowell's account of the same matter is somewhat more 
at large. 

" I had had no personal dealings with Mr. Wright Boott, except 
that I had lent to him a few years before, a large sum of money from 
the trust funds in my hands, belonging to the estate of Jonathan 
Amory, on a pledge of manufacturing stocks. These stocks stood at 
the time of his making the loan, and had always stood, in his own in- 
dividual name. In May, 1831, Mr. Brooks proposed to me that the 
right of redemption of these shares should be conveyed to Mr. Boott 
in his capacity of executor, subject to my debt ; and he suggested, as 
the simplest mode of doing this, that I should convey the shares to 
Mr. Boott in that capacity, receiving simultaneously a reconveyance 
back. The legal effect of this he stated to be, to invest the equity of 
redemption in the estate, and nothing more. 

I answered, that if Mr. Boott acceded to it, I should not object, 
provided it were understood that I was to reserve the amount of in- 
terest due to my trust out of the dividends, and that I did not waive 
my right to pay myself, whenever I should deem it necessary, by a 
sale of a portion of the stock. 

It is obvious, that I could not be actuated in this arrangement by 
any motive, but that of doing a kindness to Mr. Brooks and the fam- 



295 

ily. I had perfect security in my hands ; but, on the other hand, I 
felt confident that I was dealing with men of honor, who would never 
turn to my disadvantage a measure adopted exclusivelv for their bene- 
fit and at their own urgent request. 

Mr. Brooks is mistaken, when he says (page 43) that in our con- 
versation in May, 1831, I agreed with him that the shares pledged to 
me, though standing in the name of Mr. Wright Boott, were in reality 
a part of the assets of his father's estate. This is impossible ; for it 
10 as not until August, 1831, that is to say, three months later, that I 
was consulted about the affairs of Mr. Wright Boott. I knew noth- 
ing about them, except from Mr. Brooks himself and could not, of 
course, either affirm or deny any representation he might see tit to 
make on the subject." [L. pp. 29-30.] 

Again he remarks :— 

" It will be observed, that I had no imaginable interest in the settle- 
ment of the accounts, [in 1844] except that it should be done upon just 
and equitable principles. Mr. Boott owed a debt, it is true, to the estate 
of Jonathan Amory, of which I was the trustee ; but it was secured 
by a pledge of stock in which the estate of Kirk Boott, senior, had no 
interest, as I believed and had been assured, beyond a right of re- 
demption. Even if the form in which I held those stocks was a 
wrong one, it was a form adopted at Mr. Brooks's own suggestion, for 
the benefit of the family ; and it had never occurred to me that Mr. 
Brooks would have availed himself of an act, done at his own in- 
stance, and for such a purpose, to my disadvantage. Nor do I now 
believe that he ever would have done so to my pecuniary disadvan- 
tage ; though he has not scrupled, in the excitement of controversy, 
to use it as an argument against me." [L. pp. 35-36.] 

When he undertakes to explain how the cash balance of 
$25,000, claimed for the executor in the account of 1844, 
arose, he says : — 

" It was simply, because, in virtue of an agreement made with me 
by Mr. Edward Brooks, in 1831, certain shares, which had stood in 
Mr. Boott's own name, and which I had every reason to suppose 
were his own individual property, and which, while so standing, had 
been pledged to me, four years before, for a loan, were, on the very 
day of the presentment of the account, retransferred by me to Mr. 
Boott as executor. The agreement with Mr. Brooks was based on 
the distinct recognition of my debt, as a lien on the stock, and was, 
virtually, that the estate should have the equity of redemption of 
those shares, subject to that debt. It was not, at that time, intimated 
by Mr. Brooks, that these shares, specifically, belonged to the estate, 
of Mr. Boott, senior ; but the object was, as Mr. Brooks has himself 

sfated it, (p. 43) to prevent their attachment by any creditor of Mr. 

Wright Boott, for their value above the debt due to me, as trustee. 



296 

Mr. Brooks also, very fairly, says (p. 117) that undoubtedly I sup- 
posed these shares to be the property of Mr. AYright Boott at the 
time I made the loan on that security ; it is therefore perfectly obvi- 
ous, that all that he could have asked, or I could have consented to, 
was that I should, in some form, give to the estate the right of re- 
demption of those shares. By reconveying them, on the day of Mr. 
Boott's presentation of the accounts, I, therefore, conveyed to the 
estate, more than it was entitled to receive, by precisely $25,000, the 
amount of my debt." [L. pp. 41-42.] 

He adds : — 

" A part of the agreement between Mr. Brooks and myself was, that 
I should not be understood as waiving the right, whenever I saw fit, 
to pay myself by a sale of so much of the stock, as might be neces- 
sary for that purpose ; a right I clearly had at common law, as holder 
of stock pledged as security for a note payable on demand." [L. p. 
42.] 

Now Mr. Lowell is right enough in the idea, that there was 
no intention, by this arrangement, to disturb his lien, or to 
alter his rights over the property ; not that there was, to 
my recollection, or in my belief, any express agreement 
about it, on my part, as he states, for I had no authority to 
bind any one of the heirs except Mr. Kirk Boott, who had 
authorized me to act for him, and Mrs. Brooks, whom I rep- 
resented by law. But, although there was no such express 
agreement on this point, as Mr. Lowell pretends, the effect of 
the transaction was supposed to be, to leave Mr. Lowell's lien, 
his right to receive the dividends, and his right of sale, just 
as they were before. So he understood at the time, no 
doubt, or he would not have consented to the arrangement ; and 
so did I understand, supposing and believing, all the while, 
that Mr. Lowell, when he originally made the loan and re_ 
ceived the shares in pledge, had no reason to suspect that they 
had been purchased with funds of the estate, or that they 
were not, in the eye of equity, the property of Mr. Boott. 

Mr. Lowell is right, also, in his belief, that 1 should never 
have availed myself of this act, done at my request, for the 
benefit of others, with some interest of my own, to his pe- 
cuniary disadvantage ; nor should I avail myself of it to his 
disadvantage in any way, unless it be a disadvantage to him 
that the truth should be made known, in reply to his state- 



297 

ments. Indeed, I do not well perceive how I could take any- 
unfair advantage of it, were I so disposed. Mr. Lowell and 
Mr. Sturgis stood, so far as I then knew, just alike, in the 
transactions had with them respectively. It seemed to be, on 
the part of both of those gentlemen, an act of kindness and 
accommodation, to Mr. J. Wright Boott and his family, to 
allow the legal title of the shares to be thus shifted, without 
impairing, as was supposed, or intended, their own security. 
They might well have confided, that, under the influence of 
Messrs J. Wright Boott and Kirk Boott, and myself, every 
other heir would confirm a transaction, entered into by us 
for the benefit of the estate. 

Perhaps there was no great occasion, however, to rely 
upon our influence. To be sure, a pledge by an executor, for 
his personal debt, of shares, which had just been conveyed 
to him in that official capacity, was, by itself, illegal. But, 
when all the circumstances, of which there were so many 
witnesses, should come to be explained, it may be doubted 
whether any heir would have been allowed to impeach the 
transaction on that ground, to the disadvantage of the pledgeCy 
while he was claiming, at the same time, the benefit of the 
executor's title to the shares, which the transaction, as a 
whole, had created. The case might be diff'erent, if he could 
show some prior, or subsequent, conduct of the pledgee, 
which, when connected with this transaction, made it operate 
unfairly upon the heirs. 

There is not, therefore, and never was, the least complaint, 
on my part, respecting the ^^form,''^ in which Mr. Lowell 
held these stocks, nor respecting the substantial fact, so far 
as it depended on this agreement, as a thing by itself. Even 
''in the excitement of controversy," I do not claim, and 
never have claimed, to use that as an argument against him. 
Bat when he uses the nominal balance of this account as 
proof of my error and misconduct in imputing mismanage- 
ment to Mr. Boott, and founds his argumemt for the reality 
of that balance on this transaction of May, 1831, I claim to 
expose the actual facts, in answer to a very puerile piece of 
sophistry. And when he undertakes to say, that he did not 

38 



298 

agree^ in May, 1831, as the basis of that transaction, that the 
shares, previously pledged to him by Mr. Boott, though stand- 
ing at the time in Mr. Boott's private name, were, in an equit- 
able view, a part of the assets of his father's estate, — or when 
he says that the legal effect of the transaction was stated hy 
me, as an inducement to his consent, to be, to vest in the 
estate the equity of redemption of those shares, and nothing 
m.ore^ and that he had been assured by me, that the estate 
had no interest in the shares heyond that right of redemption, 
— I claim the further privilege of showing, that these asser- 
tions are not made with that '-'■ usual accuracy," for which Mr. 
Lowell has so distinguished himself in his '' Reply." 

I have stated, that, shortly before this time, Mr. Lowell 
was brought into the counsel concerning Mr. J. Wright 
Boott's affairs, and that he knew, generally, the views and 
opinions of Mr. Kirk Boott and myself, and to all appearance 
concurred in them. He knew, generally, if not in the mi- 
nutest detail, the actual position of all the property. How 
much more he knew, on some points, than I did, will appear 
as we proceed. He knew and concurred in the opinion, how 
undesirable and impossible it was, to permit the estate to 
touch the iron foundry, implicated as that was in the affairs 
of Lyman &> Ralston, and the just claims of their creditors. 
He knew, that, after abandoning that, with the proceeds of 
the store, to Mr. Boott's separate account, all the remaining 
property was grossly inadequate to discharge the estate from 
its suretyship to the wards, and to preserve the unquestionable 
trust funds ; and he therefore knew, that these shares could 
not, under that arrangement, be considered otherwise than 
as representing, to their full unpledged value, funds of the 
estate. For its funds, previous to that arrangement, were 
specifically invested no where ; and if they did not lie in the 
store, (then sold,) nor in the foundry, they could exist only 
in the manufacturing stock and other items mentioned as 
virtual assets of the estate, which Mr. Boott was desirous, 
now, to acknowledge and mark as such. 

Now what is the character of the transaction ? Mr. Boott, 
in effect, says, to Mr. Lowell, " These are the estate's shares. 



299 

I bought them, it is true, as my own, but with funds bor- 
rowed from the estate, which I am now unable to repay. In 
the mean time, I have, unhappily, considering them my own, 
pledged them to you for a private debt ; and that debt, also, 
I am, at present, unable to repay out of any means of my 
own. I ought, in truth, never to have regarded these shares 
as my private property. They should have been marked for 
the estate from the beginning, since the moneys, which paid 
for them, were borrowed from the estate. But that cannot 
now be remedied. I shall pay my debt to you, from my 
own resources, if I am ever able. In the mean time, I can- 
not take the shares out of your hands, and by holding them., 
for some length of time, you may enable me, gradually, to 
wipe off the incumbrance. The best justice I can do, there- 
fore, under the circumstances, is to request you, without 
yielding your own security, to acknowledge them, as I do, to 
be the estate's property, and for that purpose to transfer them 
to me, as executor, and to receive them back from me, as 
executor, in renewed pledge for your debt, leaving me to 
rectify the irregularity with the estate, hereafter, as well as I 
may." 

This is the plain literal meaning of the transaction, and is 
that, to which Mr. Lowell, from its nature, must have 
assented when he made the transfer, whether any thing were 
said about it or not. It was the acknowledgement of both 
parties, pledgor and pledgee, that the shares, though suffered 
to remain pledged for Mr. Boott's individual debt, were really 
the property of the estate. One proof of it is, that, upon the 
retransfer, a new note was made, and that note made by the 
executor and under that name, as if the debt itself had been 
a debt of the estate ; which Mr. Lowell does not pretend it 
to have been. This, formerly stated by me, [B. p. 43.] Mr. 
Lowell does not deny. Was this debt then, admitted by the 
executor, with my assent, to be, in form, a debt of the estate, 
and yet the shares, which covered it, not admitted by Mr. 
Lowell, to be in truth the property of the estate ? 

But Mr. Lowell says, that I proposed, that the right of 
redemption, only, of these sha>''?.s should be conveyed to Mr. 



300 

Boott as executor, subject to his debt ; and that I suggested, 
as the simplest mode of doing this, that he, Mr. Lowell, 
should convey the shai^es to Mr. Boott in that capacity, re- 
ceiving simultaneously a reconveyance back. That would, 
certainly, have been a degree of simplicity, in both of us, of 
which, I think, we should hardly be suspected. If the whole 
object had been to vest in the estate the surplus value 
beyond the debt, and not the shares them^selves, I should 
think the simplest mode of effecting it would have been the 
common arrangement of taking an acceptance, from Mr. 
Lowell, of an order from Mr. Boott, to pay over the surplus 
to him as executor, whenever the shares should be sold ; or 
else a promise to convey the shares to the executor, when- 
ever the executor, as such, should paij the debt out of other 
funds of the estate. 

Again, Mr. Lowell says, that the shares being Mr, Bootfs, 
the whole object was to prevent Mr. Bootfs creditors from, 
attaching them, ; and he has the assurance to quote me for 
it, referring to my pamphlet at p. 43. Mr. Lowell may make 
himself a party to such an agreement, if he will ; but I pray 
him to excuse me. If the shares were admitted to be Mr. 
Bootfs, really, as well as nominally, and this arrangement 
was only to cover them from attachment, what was it but 
a fraud on Mr. Bootfs other creditors ? And as to quot- 
ing me for that, I have already cited the language I used, 
by which the reader will see, that, when it states the 
object of the arrangement to have been to prevent an at- 
tachment, it also states this to have been because of a 
conversation with Mr. Lowell, in which we agreed, that 
the shares formerly pledged to him, "though standing, at 
the time, m the name of Mr. J. Wright Boott individually, 
were, in reality, a part of the assets of his father^ s estate f^ 
and that this transaction " was the best expedient we could 
think of to remedy the mischief, so far as to secure them 
against any other creditor than Mr. Lowell himself." On that 
basis, considering the shares to be actual trust property, pledged 
for the private debt of the trustee, the transaction was per- 
fectly right in itself, and fair towards general creditors, who 



301 

had no right to look for the payment of their debts out of 
trust funds held by Mr. Boott for the benefit of other persons. 
On Mr. Lowell's principle, the transaction would have been 
one, which creditors might have justly characterized by very 
harsh epithets. 

I have endeavoured to show, that my explanation of the 
arrangement is no more than the transaction itself, under the 
known circumstances of the estate, didj of its own nature, 
imply. But, that it was, also, expressly agreed by Mr. Low- 
ell, as the basis of our arrangement, that these shares did in 
equity belong to the estate, I now reiterate ; and I regret to 
find his memory so "signally treacherous" on that point. 
He denies it, however, positively ; but he, unfortunately, de- 
nies it with a circumstance. To that circumstance I now 
call attention. He says : — - 

" This is impossible ; for it was not until August, 1831, that is to 
say, three months later, that I was consulted about the affairs of Mr. J. 
Wright Boott. I knew nothing about them except from Mr. Brooks 
himself, and could not, of course either affirm or deny any repre- 
sentation he might see fit to make on this subject." [L. p. 30.] 

A part of this is repeated :— 

"In the summer of 1831, a new alarm as to their responsibility 
occurred, and Mr. Kirk Boott applied to me to undertake the bring- 
ing about of some settlement, stating, that he and Mr. Brooks had 
tried their hand at it and failed. This was the first knowledge I had of 
the nature and extent of these embarrassments, though rumors had 
reached me of Lyman & Ralston's troubles, and I had entertained 
an apprehension, that Mr. Wright Boott might be involved in them." 
[L. p. 77.] 

A similar statement is made at p. 28 : — 

" Our partnership [Boott & Lowell] was dissolved in 1824; and 
from that time I had no knowledge of Mr. Wright Boott's affairs, 
until the month of August, 1831, ichen I was consulted by my friend 
Mr. Kirk Boott, upon some embarrassments, that had grown out of 
the connection of his brother in the business of the Mill Dam Foundery 
with Messrs. Lyman & Ralston, whose bankruptcy was then, and had 
been for some time, apprehended." 

This is a very strange instance of oversight. If the reader 
will turn to my last cited letter from Mr. Kirk Boot dated 



««• 



302 

May 22, 1831, and which was printed in the pamphlet, 
which Mr. Lowell pretends to answer, he will find it begins 
thus :— 

"My Dear Sir, 

Accompanying yours of yesterday I had one from J. A. Z., [Mr. 
John A. Lowell,] urging me to come down." 

About what business ? The letter goes on to say, 

" I have no copy of my letter to Wright ; it was penned in great 
pain, and under an overwhelming impression derived from a con- 
versation with J. [Mr. P. T. Jackson] that L. ^ Rh failure was at 
hand." 

It then speaks of an examination of their affairs, to which 
Mr. Jackson was a party, upon the occasion of an application 
for a certain discount, resulting in a report from him that 
they were not entitled to any credit. It adverts to Mr. J. 
Wright Boott's resignation of the Suffolk agency, for which 
it is said, " no adequate motives could be openly assigned ;" 
but the cause, it is thought, must have been suspected by Mr. 
William Appleton and others, and it is added, "/. A. L. also, 
had observed to me that he did not think the sacrifice of J. 
W. B. would be of any service to L. & K." 

Had not Mr. Lowell, then, in May, 1831, (the date of this 
letter,) already been consulted about Mr. Boott's affairs? 
Will he say, that, so late as in August of that year, nothing 
but ^^ rumors ^^ had reached him of Lyman &> Ralston's 
troubles, and that he entertained only an '^ apprehension that 
Mr. Boott might be involved in them," when he had been 
giving his opinion to Mr. Kirk Boott, before the 22d of May, 
that, permitting Mr. Wright Boott to fail, too, would not help 
the case of Lyman & Ralston, and when he had, after that, 
but still before the 22d of May, been writing to Mr. Kirk 
Boott, urging him to come to Boston with reference to those 
affairs ? 

But this is not all. Mr. Lowell himself finds occasion to 
use, in another connexion, and for a different purpose, a letter 
from Mr. P. T. Jackson to Mr. Kirk Boott, dated May 30, 



303 

1831, relating to Mr. J. Wright Boott's resignation of his 
agency. The letter is printed at large, [L. p. 102.] and the 
following sentences are extracts : — 

" /. A. L. and I agree, that he cannot well confirm his resignation 
there, and immediately take another business ; besides which we think 
now is the time, if ever, when he should settle every thing, and free 
himself from all engagements and responsibility on old concerns,^' 

********** 

" If I don't see you, John " [i. e. Mr. John A. Lowell] " will ex- 
plain this more at largeT 

Had not Mr. Lowell, then, been made acquainted, in May, 
1831, with the fact, that Mr. Boott had engagements and 
responsibilities on his " old concerns''' to settle ? What were 
these OLD concerns, referred to by Mr. Jackson ? The en- 
gagements for Lyman & Ralston only ? or the general fam- 
ily accounts? An earlier letter from Mr, Jackson, printed 
by Mr. Lowell, [L. p. 100.] answers that question. It is 
dated May 8, 1831, addressed to Mr. J. Wright Boott, and 
contains these words: ''Will you allow me to urge you to 
overcome this reluctance, and to proceed, immediately, to 
the settlement of your affairs, more particularly those of your 
own family 1^'' 

But this is not all. Mr. Lowell prints at large, a note dated 
^' Wednesday morning," from Mr. Kirk Boott, " to his 
brother, inclosi7ig the foregoing letter from Mr. Jackson;'''' 
[L. p. 103.] meaning the letter of May 30. The note begins 
thus : — 

" My Dear Wright ; 

I should have conversed with you last evening on the subject of the 
enclosed, but was inclined to first sleep upon it^ 

This and the almanac fix its date at May 31, the day next 
after the date of Mr. Jackson's letter, which was May 30. 
It contains these sentences : — 

" J. A. L. offered and offers, to go on to Philadelphia for the pur- 
pose of arranging with the Ralstons as to your endorsements and the 
mortgage; and I believe he would find little difficulty in settling 
them." " This is due to you from J. A. L. He feels it to be so ; and 
it will give him great satisfaction, if he can bring this affair to a suc- 
cessful termination." 



304 

These are more "contemporaneous expositions." It is 
plain, at p. 103 of the " Reply," that Mr. Lowell was mis- 
taken at p. 77, when he said, Mr. Kirk Boott applied to him 
to undertake this agency ; since Mr. Kirk Boott says, Mr. 
Lowell made the offer ; and also, that he was mistaken at pp. 
28, 30, when he says, it was not till August, 1831, that he 
was consulted about Mr. J. Wright Boott's affairs, since it 
appears from all these letters, that he was consulted about 
them, and conferred with Mr. Kirk Boott and with Mr. 
Jackson about them, in May 1831, and as early as the 8th 
of that month. 

More than this : when Mr. Lowell introduces Mr. Jackson's 
letter of May 8, 1831, he speaks of Mr. Jackson as " k?iowing 
all the facts of these embarrassments on which Mr. Brooks 
has laid such stress." [L. p. 99.] Will Mr. Lowell pretend, 
that Mr. Jackson, at that date, knew more about them than he 
did ? Mr. Jackson, in the letter of May 30th, referring to 
the necessity of settling up the old concerns, says, '-John 
[meaning Mr. John A. Lowell,] will explain this more at 

LARGE." 

I have not, even yet, exhibited all the evidence, which Mr. 
Lowell furnishes against himself. He gives an account, as of 
his own personal knowledge, of the long negotiation, " which 
ended in Mr. Boott's joining in a mortgage of the foundery, 
to the amount of $30,000." [L. p. 77.] Now the date of 
that mortgage is October 29, 1830, as its record in the Norfolk 
Registry of Deeds shows. Yet, says Mr. Lowell, "It was 
not until August, 1831, that I was consulted about the affairs 
of Mr. Wright Boott ; " and, referring to the latter part of May 
of that year, he says, " / knew nothing about them except 
from Mr. Brooks himself, and could not, of course, either 
affirm or deny any representation he might see fit to make 
on this subject.''^ I think the reader will find, presently, that 
he knew a vast deal more about them than I did. 

The circumstance, therefore, on which Mr. Lowell relies, 
in proof of the impossibility of his having agreed, on the 
23d of May, 1831, as I affirm he did agree, namely, that the 
shares, which had been pledged to him by Mr. Boott, were in 



305 

reality a part of the estate of Mr. Boott, senior, turns out, 
upon his own showing, to be a most remarkable misrecol- 
lection. I leave it, then, to the reader to determine, which 
of us is most likely to misrecollect the main fact^ appealing, 
for confirmation of my own memory, to the nature of the 
transaction on the face of the papers, connected with the ad- 
mitted description and proved value of Mr. Boott's assets, 
placed by the side of the proved debts and the admitted 
amount of the trust fund then to be reconstructed and se- 
cured. To this I may fairly add the responsibility of the 
position, in which Mr. Kirk Boott's letter had placed me, 
when compelled to act, without him, for the common inter- 
est of the whole family on a great emergency. If my memory 
is good for any thing, upon any occasion, it could hardly fail 
to retain the remarkable particulars of an unusual transaction 
of such magnitude, managed by myself, and one, in which I 
had a much deeper interest at stake than if it had been a 
merely pecuniary interest of my own, though that, also, was 
not wanting. Mr. Lowell, since his lien was not to be dis- 
turbed, had, as he professes, no interest in the matter, except 
to oblige his friends. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

MR. Lowell's argument, from the agreement of may, 1831, 
ON the reality of the cash balance claimed for MR, 
boott. 

Leaving the direct contradiction shown in the last chapter, 
between Mr. Lowell and myself, on a matter of fact, to be 
settled by the reader, let us now look to the argimient. 

Whether Mr. Lowell agreed, in terms, that these shares 
were part of the assets of the estate or not, if Mr. Boott as- 
sented to it, his act, in taking a transfer to hiraself as execi 



306 

utor^ made them so, as against him. This settles the ques- 
tion of the account. That is to say, these shares were then, 
with other property, turned over to the estate, by Mr. Boott, 
for the double purpose of securing the estate against the claim 
of his wards, and of replacing the trust fund, formed in 1818, 
but afterwards broken up ; and, if all the property so turned 
over, when cleared of Mr. Boott 's private incumbrances upon 
it, was, at its then value, insufficient, as I have shown, for 
these purposes, it is certain that the transaction of May, 1831, 
did not leave Mr. Boott the owner, at that time, of a present 
interest of $25,000, nor of a single dollar, in that property, 
subject to the incumbrances. If it were true then. — as the 
probate account, with Mr. Lowell's explanation of it, pretends, 
— that Mr. Boott had, in 1844, a private interest, mingled with 
the property of the estate, in the shares held by Mr. Lowell, 
it would be clear that this private interest must have been 
created by some cause, which Mr. Lowell is bound to show, 
subsequent to the transaction of 1831, and by some cause 
other than a mere restoration of these shares to the executor^ 
in 1844, which Mr. Lowell insists is the true and sole cause. 
To place this beyond all possibility of doubt, let me restate 
the case in figures. The whole property, that is, Lilly's note, 
the stable, and the manufacturing stock, valued, clear of in- 
cumbrance, has been shown to have been worth, when put 
in trust, in 1831, [Ante, p. 291,] only about $122,000 

But there were three special claims upon it : 

1. That of the debt to Mr. Boott's wards, 
for which the whole estate of Mr. Boott 
the father was bound, then, according to 

Mr. Tyler, about $39,000 

2. The debt to Mr. Lowell, for which fifty 
shares of the manufacturing stock were 
pledged, then 30,000 

3. The debt to Mr. Sturgis, for which for- 
ty-two shares were pledged, 21,000 

90,000 



Leaving a clear surplus for the estate of only 32,000 



307 

Now admitting, for the sake of the argument, that Mr. 
Boott was not bomid, in 1831, to keep on hand the fund of 
$11,000 for his aunts (in consequence of their deaths, which 
Mr. Lowell must assume to have happened,) and admitting 
that this sum had been duly distributed among the heirs, 
together with whatever else they had been entitled to from 
the estate, (which Mr. Lowell also assumes,) so that all the 
executor remained accountable for, on his trust, in 1844, was 
that, which Mr. Lowell admits, namely, the fund for his 
mother of $100,000, how was it possible for Mr. Boott, with 
the means he possessed in 1831, to have got the $100,000 
fund, whole, out of that property, and to make $25,000 of 
the property his own ? 

The income of the fund he was bound to apply to tlie 
purposes of the trust. He could not lawfully use that, any 
more than the principal, to pay his own debts with ; and Mr. 
Lowell indignantly repels the idea of his having done so. 
[L. p. 92.] This will presently be considered. Any rise in 
value of the stocks, after they had been conveyed to the 
estate, would be the gain of the estate, not Mr. Boott's. 
What this may at any time have amounted to I will presently 
consider, as well as the effect of charging the stocks to the 
trust at their alleged cost, instead of their market value, at 
the time, of their conversion into trust property — a principle, 
which Mr. Lowell, with singular inconsistency, contends for, 
while he contends, in the same breath, that the shares held 
by him in pledge were not considered the estate's property, 
and that the estate acquired no interest in them, by the 
transaction of May, 1831, except their value in redemption 
beyond his debt. 

How then, I repeat, were the $90,000 of incumbrances to 
be paid off, out of a property of $122,000, and $25,000 to be 
left from it belonging to Mr. Boott, after making good, and 
keeping good, the entire trust fund of $100,000 ? Or, since, 
after taking the incumbrances out of this property, there was 
a deficiency m Mrs. Boott's trust fund of near $70,000, how 
was Mr. Boott, with this same property, and such other means 



308 

as he had, to make up that deficiency, and also to acquire, 
or reserve, $25,000 for himself? 

The only other property possessed by Mr. Boott, in May, 
1831, it has been seen, was his interest in the foundry, sub- 
ject to its debts, and the surplus remaining from the sale of 
the store, after the partial payment made out of it, to one of 
his wards. These were no great sums ; not, both together, 
much exceeding $16,000 of present assets.* They could go 
but a little way towards the payment of so large a debt. Unless, 
therefore, Mr. Lowell can show some other resources of Mr. 
Boott, either omitted in his memorandum of 1830, or sub- 
sequently acquired, and acquired otherwise than out of the 
trust property itself, and that these new resources, added to 
tliose above-mentioned, were adequate to the extinguishment 
of so large an amount of incumbrance, as it was needful to 
extinguish, before the $100,000 fund could be extracted, 
whole, from the $122,000 of property, which was transferred 
subject to the incumbrances ; he cannot begin to establish, for 
Mr. Boott, a private interest of one dollar in that property. 
No such omissions, or subsequent acquisitions, are pretended ; 
and, without them, all the figures and sophistry in the world 
cannot overcome the plain fact, which has now been made 
manifest. 

But it is worth while briefly to look, in connexion with 
undisputed or indisputable facts, at Mr. Lowell's arguments 
on this point ; and, to do him full justice, I shall report them 
in his own language. 

Speaking of the account of 1844, (which, after stating the 
property held by the executor, adds the words, '' less cash 
balance due to the executor, $25,215 45,") " What," asks 
Mr. Lowell, " does this cash balance mean ?" *' It means 

* The proceeds of the store were $16,000 

The reduction of the giiardianship debt in 1831, according to 

Mr. Tyler, was abont 7,500 

Surplus, - 8,500 

Cash proceeds of Mr. Boott's interest in the foundry, by the 
settlement with Lyman & Ralston, according to Mr. Low- 
ell, about 7,600 

16,100 



309 

that he had stocks, and other property standing in his name, 
as executor^ more than belonged to the estate, to that 
umount.^^ [L. p. 41.] 

The ^'stocks" here spoken of, it will be observed, are the 
same thirty-nine shares of Boston Manufacturing Company, 
and the same seventy-two shares of Merrimack Manufacturing 
Company, (less one, which had disappeared,) and the "other 
property" is the same stable, which received the executor's 
mark, and were put to the trust account, by the transactions 
of May, 1831. [See the account, L. p. 39.] These, the 
"Reply" says, were property standing in the name of the 
executor, more than belonged to the estate, by $25,000. 

" How came this to be the case ?" asks Mr. Lowell, and 
he answers his own question thus : — 

'' It was simply because, in virtue of an agreeinent made with me 
hy Mr. Edward Brooks, in 1831, certain shares, which had stood in 
Mr. Boott's own name, and which I had every reason to suppose were 
his individual property, and which, while so standing, had been 
pledged to mo,, four years before, for a loan, were, on the very clay of 
the presentment of the account, retransferred by me to Mr. Boott AS 
executor." [L. p. 41] 

The shares so retransferred, on that day, were seventy-one 
in number, namely, the fifty shares originally pledged by Mr. 
Boott, as his own, to Mr. Lowell, but which Mr. Boott re- 
ceiving back, as executor, in May, 1831, had thereupon trans- 
ferred, as executor, in renewed pledge to Mr. Lowell, and 
twenty-one of the forty-two shares, which Mr. Boott received 
and transferred in like manner, as executor, about the same 
time, in the arrangement with Mr. Sturgis, but which twenty- 
one shares Mr. Sturgis, afterwards, assigned to Mr. Lowell. 
Thus, holding seventy-one shares, on the day of the account, 
Mr. Lowell transferred them all, absolutely, to Mr. Boott, as 
executor. [See records of transfers.] 

Mr. Lowell, it will be observed, in his foregoing statement, 
shuts out of sight the fact of the transfer and retransfer to 
and by Mr. Boott, as executor, in 1831. Leaving the case 
divested, in this immediate connexion, of that important fea- 



310 

ture, (though the fact is elsewhere admitted,) the "Reply" 
proceeds thus : — 

" The agreement with Mr. Brooks was based on the distinct recog- 
nition of my debt as a lien on the stock, and was, virtually, that the 
estate should have the equity of redemption of those shares, subject to 
that debt:' [L. p. 41.] 

"Mr. Brooks also very fairly says, [p. 117.] that, undoubtedly, I 
supposed these shares to be the property of Mr. Wright Boott at the 
time I made the loan on that security.* It is, therefore, perfectly 
obvious, that all he could have asked, oy I could have consented to^ 
•^was that I should, in some i^vm^give to the estate the right of redemp- 
tion of those shares. By reconveying them, on the day of Mr. Boott's 
presentation of the accounts, / therefore conveyed to the estate more 
than it was entitled to receive, by precisely $25,000, the amount of my 
deUr [L. p. 42.] 

Now, on looking at the context, the reader will observe that 
this is an argument to prove that Mr. Boott had a right to 
charge against the property of the estate, as he does in this 
account of 1844, $25,000, as a cash balance due to him from 
the estate, and that this is a real cash balance. That is, Mr. 
Lowell claims to identify himself with Mr. Boott. His argu- 
ment comes to this : '' I had a lien of $25,000, on these 
shares, because Mr. Boott personally owed me that money, for 
which these shares were pledged. By my agreement with 
Mr. Brooks, in 1831, I gave the estate a right to redeem 
them from that debt. The estate, in 1844, had never exer- 
cised that right ; but, on the day of the account, I neverthe- 
less, conveyed the shares to the estate, clear of the debt. 
Therefore., the estate, having received, from me, more than 
it was entitled to, from me, by precisely f 25, 000, it owes that 
money, not to me, hut to Mr. Boott, — and not to him as my 
assignee, but as executor of his father'' s estate. His debt to 
me is the estate's debt. My claim on the property is his 
claim. He and I are one.^^ 



* That, the reader will remember, was in 1827. I did not say that Mr. Lowell 
supposed them to be Mr. Boott's, in 1831. On the contrary, the passage referred 
to, of my former pamphlet, expressly declares, that Mr. Lowell '■'■kneiv in 1831, 
that the shares pledged to him, as trustee, could not in equity be regarded as 
the property of Mr. Wright Boott." The reader will see, presently, what Mr. 
Lowell's means of knowledge were, at the time of the original loan, in 1827. 



31i 

This absurdity seems to be the necessary consequence of 
Mr. Lowell's premises. The whole force of his argument, 
such as it is, lies in the naked assertio7i, that, by the trans- 
action of 1831, the estate got no title to the shares, but got 
a right to acquire one, by paying $25,000 for them ; which 
m.ay be perfectly true as between the estate and Mr. Lowell, 
but is perfectly untrue as between the estate and Mr. Boott. 
For the shares were first transferred to Mr. Boott as executor, 
in 1831, and were thereby made property, for which he, in 
that capacity, became accountable to the estate ; they were 
then transferred by him, as executor, to Mr. Lowell, for the 
purpose of restoring to Mr. Lowell a lien, which, if it had 
not previously existed, the executor, acting in that capacity, 
would have had no right or power to create. 

The intention plainly was, to make Mr. Boott accountable 
to the estate for the shares, and to make Mr. Lowell ac- 
countable to it only for their surplus value beyond his debt. 
And this was effectually done ; for it seems, that Mr. Loring, 
when consulted, was of opinion, that, since the shares stood 
in Mr. Boott's name as executor, when they were last con- 
veyed by him to Mr. Lowell, " it was proper and necessary 
that they should be introduced into the account." This was 
Mr. Loring's opinion, notwithstanding he supposed, — ^upon 
the misinformation of his clients as to the cause why the 
shares so stood,- — that, to the extent of f 25,000, they were 
the private property of Mr. Boott ; and, upon that hypothesis, 
depending on the state of facts in 1831, which the account 
did not show, and of which he had no personal knowledge, 
he is said to have advised that Mr. Boott should claim this 
difference of $25,000 as a balance due to him from the es- 
tate. [L. p. 42.] 

But the argument for this difference in Mr. Boott's favour, 
unfortunately, proves too much, as is apt to be the case with 
sophistical arguments. The debt to Mr. Lowell, at the time 
of the transaction of May, 1831, was not §^25,000, as the argu- 
ment assumes, but $30,000. That was the sum lent in 
1827, [L. p. 87.] and the payment of $5000, which reduced 
the debt to $25,000, was not made, till November, 1831; 



312 

[B. App. p. 26.] that is, six months after the agreement with 
me in May of that year, which Mr. Lowell now says was the 
cause of Mr. Boott's having a private interest of ^25,000 
in shares, held, nominally, as executor. If, then, by that 
transaction, the estate acquired, as against Mr. Boott, only 
the value of the shares beyond Mr. Boott's debt to Mr. Low- 
ell, and a right to get a title and a further interest by paying 
that debt for him, (which is Mr. Lowell's argument,) why 
does not the account show a cash balance of $30,000 due 
to Mr. Boott, instead of one for $25,000 ? The estate cer- 
tainly, never paid the §5000, which reduced the debt ; — it 
was paid by Mr. Boott, himself, from a source, which will 
presently appear. 

Besides, whatever the bargain was, which I made with Mr. 
Lowell, I, afterwards, made a precisely similar bargain with 
Mr. Sturgis. The two transactions were, in principle, and in 
form, exactly alike. It follows, then, according to Mr. Low-^ 
ell's argument, that the estate must have got, by that trans- 
action, also, only an interest in the surplus value of forty-two 
shares of Merrimack stock beyond $21,000 of debt due from 
Mr. Boott, for which they were then pledged to Mr. Sturgis. 
But the estate, according to Mr. Lowell, never paid a dollar 
of that money. So the account of 1844 tacitly afiirms, since 
it contains no such charge ; and Mr. Lowell positively de- 
clares that he paid that debt, for Mr. Boott. [L. p. 96.] How 
comes it then, that, in November, 1831, twenty-one of those 
shares were conveyed by Mr. Sturgis to the executor, as such, 
clear of all incumbrance, and that in November, 1844, the other 
twenty-one, which had in the mean time passed into Mr. Low- 
ell's hands, were also transferred by Mr. Lowell (in addition 
to the fifty shares before mentioned,) to the executor, as such, 
clear of all incumbrance ? And how is it that the executor, 
charging himself in his account, with the ivhole ninety-two 
shares, which he had received from Messrs. Lowell and Stur- 
gis, as property of the estate, does not claim, for that cause, 
a cash balance of $51,000, (the amount of the debts, for 
which they had been pledged,) as due to him, upon them, 
instead of one of $25,000 only ? How happens this, when, 



313 

in 1831, according to the '' Reply," Mr. Boott had only trans- 
ferred to the estate, what value there might be in the ninety- 
two shares beyond the |5 1,000 of debt, for which they Avere 
then pledged ; and when, according to the '' Reply," he had 
afterwards paid $26,000 of that debt, not out of the estate's 
money, but, as Mr. Lowell represents, out of his own pocket, 
[L. pp. 92, 97.] thus making the $26,000 go to the benefit of 
the estate as a pure gratuity , and not because the shares 
themselves were, in 1831, declared and made to be the es- 
tate's property* 

If it be said, the executor claims no more than $25,000, in- 
stead of $51,000, as his due^ because the former siun is the 
result of all the debits and credits contained in the account, 
and makes an exact balance^ that is only begging the question 
of the correctness of the account, — which is the very matter in 
issue. Mr. Lowell has undertaken to show that this alleged 
cash balance of $25,000 must be correct, — not because it 
results from the other entries in the account, the truth and 
completeness of which are the very questions, but — because 
of a particular agreement^ made with me in 1831, whereby 
the estate acquired an interest in certain shares held by him 
in pledge, subject to his lien upon them for that precise sum. 
The reductio ad absurdum is complete, when it is shown that 
the same reasoning would lead to an inevitable balance of 
$51,000 due to the executor, notwithstanding that the fig- 
ures in the accoimt prove, incontestibly, if thei/ are to be 
relied on, that this same balance is only $25,000. 

On the other hand, when we come to the plain matter of 
fact, if the entire property appropriated to the trust, in May, 
1831, deducting the incumbrances upon it, was $68,000 short 
of that, which, by Mr. Lowell's own admissions, it should 
have been, and if Mr. Boott had not then, nor ever afterwards, 
more than $15,000, or $20,000 at most, of his own property 
in hand, (which will presently appear,) let Mr. Lowell show, 
if he can, by any arithmetic, or any system of logic, within 
the compass of his ingenuity, how those incumbrances, to the 

40 



314 

amount of $90,000,^ were paid off, without using the trust 
property itself, its income, gains, or rise in value, to do it 
with, so as to make, in 1844, an apparent property of $100,000, 
or near it, for the trust, and $25,000 for Mr. Boott himself. 
Until that can be shown, the alleged ''cash balance due to 
the executor," must stand exposed as an unreal statement ; 
and if it results, as it appears to result, from the cash debits 
and credits of the account, it only follows that something is 
not debited, which should be, or that something is credited, 
which should not be. In other words, the indisputable facts ^ 
of 1831, prove the account^ of 1844, to be essentially erroneous. 
After showing that, the bm'den is not on me, surely, if I were 
under any burden in the outset, to explain the error, or to 
show in what wrong entry, or omission of entry, precisely, it 
consists. To some extent, however, I think, I shall show 
that. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 



UFACTURING COMPANY. THE CHARGE AGAINST ME, OF MISREP- 
RESENTATION, BY ITALICIZING, TURNED UPON MR. LOWELL. 

Before quitting this momentous month of May, 1831, it 
may be proper for me to advert, more particularly, to the cir- 
cumstances attending Mr. Boott's resignation, at that time, of 
the agency of the Suffolk Manufacturing Company, which 
he had previously agreed to accept. 

Mr. Lowell, evidently, wishes his readers to suppose that I 
" either never knew, or had completely forgotten," this occur- 

* Balance of guardianship debt, $39,000 

Pledges to Messrs. Sturgis and Lowell, for - - - - 51,000 



90,000 



315 

rence also, with its attendant circumstances, some of which 
he communicates as new information. [L. pp. 55, 100.] And 
it is true that these facts, like many others, which had but a 
remote bearing on the matters in dispute, were not mentioned 
in my former pamphlet. But he intimates a purposed misrep- 
resentation, by me, of a passage in one of Mr. Kirk Boott's 
letters, alluding to this same event. These two suggestions, 
— -ignorance of a fact, and intentional misrepresentation of it, 
— hardly stand well together ; but there is as much truth in 
the one, as there is in the other. 

It is strange from what slight premises Mr. Lowell, some- 
times, ventures to draw hasty inferences, which he imme- 
diately builds upon as undoubted facts, justifying the gravest 
charges. Will the reader believe that his sole ground, for in- 
ferring and charging an intended misrepresentation of the 
passage, above referred to, in one of Mr. Kirk Boott's letters, 
is, that, like many other passages of those letters, upon which 
I desired, for one reason or another, to fix attention, it was 
printed, in my appendix, in Italic types ? 

He charges me, indeed, with a general ^^ practice of convey- 
ing a false impression by Italicizing certain words and pas- 
sages." [L. p. 84.] 

The reader will judge whether I am justly chargeable with 
that species of unfairness ; and whether these Italicisms, 
which I often use, are employed by me for the purpose of 
conveying a falsehood, or simply to mark^ more distinctly, 
that, which I desire to have marked. 

The '' Reply " points out two particular instances, only, in 
support of this charge ; but, it is said, '' These instances show 
the spirit, in which this book is written. It would be easy to 
follow out these misrepresentations step by step ; but more 
important matters claim our attention." [L. p. 85.] 

Now as to this sweeping suggestion of misrepresentations, 
not specified, because the accusing party can not condescend 
to the task of following them out, step by step, although, he 
says, "it would be easy" to do so, a charge in that vague form 
is, of course, easily made, and impossible to be answered other- 
wise than by an equally general denial. I must, of necessity, 



316 

leave it to answer itself. But, since two particular instances 
are specified as the great examples of my offence, the question 
must turn upon them, and the reader shall judge how far they 
bear out the allegation of unfair and deceitful practice. 

The first of them is this : — I mentioned, in the course of 
my text, a fact within my own knowledge ; namely, that, 
during the height of Mr. Boott's embarrassments, a resig- 
nation of his executorship was sometimes suggested. The 
trust deed of May 23, 1831, (drawn by myself,) provided, 
that I was to hold any surplus, left in my hands after the 
guardianship accounts should be settled, '' subject to the 
order of said Boott in his said capacity as executor; and in 
case the said Boott should decease, or resign his said trust 
as executor, then to hold the said balance subject to the order 
of whomsoever may be appointed administrator on said es- 
tate in his stead." [B. App, p. 23.] In speaking of this, I 
did not quote the words of the instrument ; but stated their 
effect thus: — "In case of his death, or resignation, (then 
contemplated as a contingency not improbable,) the said sur- 
plus was to be held," (fee. [B. p. 42-] 

The Italicizing of this word "resignation" is the matter 
complained of« That the event itself was then contemplat- 
ed as not improbable, I stated of my own knowledge. By 
Italicizing, I simply invited the reader to notice the fact, that 
express provision for that contingency was made, in a con- 
temporaneous paper. I did so, certainly, considering it con- 
firmatory of my recollection ; whether it is or not, the read- 
er was left fairly to judge. 

I thought I might, at least, be allowed to know, whether 
the contingent events, which I was making provision for, 
were, at this time, considered, by myself, who drew the 
instrument, likely or unlikely to happen. But Mr. Lowell 
thinks he has the faculty of knowing, even what is in the 
mind of another, better than the party himself; and his re- 
mark is, that " he, [Brooks,] might as well have Italicized 
the word ' death,' to show that he [Boott,] even then con- 
templated suicide.^ ^ [L. p. 85.] 



317 

The reader will assign to this misplaced witticism such 
value as he pleases. But does it tend to the establishing of 
any truth ? Does the reader find any real analogy between 
the two cases, which Mr. Lowell thus ironically compares ? 
Or, does he perceive the slightest unfairness, in my having 
thus drawn attention to the fact, that a voluntary resigna- 
tion, no less than the necessary termination of an office by 
death, was one of the contingencies expressly provided for, 
in an instrument drawn at a time when I assert, independ- 
ently of that evidence, that such an event was thought by 
no means improbable ? Did the Italicizing alter the sense of 
the instrument to the smallest extent ? Did it convey any 
species, or degree, of false impression ? 

In what does Mr. Lowell himself pretend to suppose the 
falsehood consists ? He travels far to find it, and endeavours 
to make it out thus. It appears, by one of the letters of Mr. 
Kirk Boott above printed, [Ante, p. 276,] that Mr. J. Wright 
Boott, in Sept. 1830, wrote as follows : — "I do wish now 
that the property was taken out of my hands, to be appro- 
priated as I first pointed out." Mr. Lowell refers to this 
single sentence, (not quoting its language correctly, by the 
way,) and says, ''Mr. Brooks however, endeavours to create 
the impression that~the trust funds were intended, by Italiciz- 
ing the word 'resignation' in two very curious instances." 
[L.p. 84] 

That, which I have above cited, is one of them ,• and I 
shall presently cite the other. 

The supposed falsehood, then, consists in this : that I have 
endeavoured to create the impression, that the property, above 
referred to by Mr. J. Wright Boott, was the trust property ; 
whereas, Mr. Lowell insists that "the property spoken of is 
the FoiinderyT [L. p. 84.] 

How does he arrive at that construction ? The only reason 
given for it is, that "no action would be necessary to take 
that [the trust fund] out of his hands, if he wished to get 
rid of it ; " but the foundry was a property " of which an 
assignment could not be made without the cooperation of 
Messrs. Lyman & Ralston." [L. p. 84.] 



318 

This reason is insignificant enough. How could the trust 
funds, any more than the foundry, be taken out of the 
hands of Mr. Boott, without ''action," and the ''coopera- 
tion " of somebody ? Must there not be a new trustee to 
receive them ? Must not the judge of probate accept a 
resignation, and make an appointment ? Must not all parties 
interested in the trust have notice and be consulted ? The 
very object of Mr. J. Wright Boott's letter, from which these 
words are extracted, was, to obtain advice and assistance 
from his brother Kirk. 

But there is another more important consideration. The 
reader has already seen, what Mr. Lowell finds it extremely 
convenient to overlook, namely, that, when Mr. Boott ex- 
pressed that wish, in September, 1830, there was no such 
thing as a specific trust fund existing. Nothing was invest- 
ed, visibly, in trust ; but all the property, out of which a 
trust fund was afterwards constructed, by the arrangement 
of May, 1831, stood, in September, 1830, — just as Mr. Boott's 
share of the foundry did, — in his individual name, as his 
private property. In that state of things, he expresses a 
wish that "//^e property was taken out of my hands, to be 
appropriated as I first pointed out ; " and the question is, 
what property he meant. 

Did he mean " the founder y,'''' particularly and exclusively, 
as Mr. Lowell assures his readers ? Or did he, as I maintain, 
mean " the property ^^ generally^ which he then held, and 
some indefinite part of which Mr. Lowell chooses to call 
''the trust funds?" Did I endeavour to convey " a /a/se 
impression," when the latter was the impression, which I, 
certainly, did intend to convey ? 

Now I am quite willing to join issue here. The reader 
shall judge who makes the misrepresentation. I have shown, 
above, the only reason assigned for Mr. Lowell's strained 
construction ; and that, I submit to the reader, is no reason 
at all. Let us see if 1 cannot find a better reason for mine, 
in addition to the obvious one, that it best accords with 
the natural force of the words used. I propose to look to 
the context^ which Mr. Lowell carefully avoids. What did 



319 

Mr. J. Wright Boott say in the same immediate connexion ? 
What preceded and led to his remark respecting " the prop- 
erty ?" The passage runs thus : — 

" And besides, if the children [his wards] are paid in full, and 
this claim of theirs also, [a claim of Lyman & Ralston,] the whole 
burthen will fall upon my poor mother, who will have means so dimin- 
ished, that her comfort and happiness will be destroyed, and if her 
mind should dwell much on her situation you will see her health de- 
cline, perhaps destroyed. I do wish now that the property was taken 
out of my hands, to be appropriated as I first pointed out." [Ante, 
p. 275-6,] 

The appropriation of " the property" then, was to be with 
reference to " means " of "my poor mother.''^ Now the foun- 
dry, it will be remembered, was the property, not of Mr. 
Boott alone, but of Messrs. Boott, Lyman and Ralston, sub- 
ject, at this time, to the claims of creditors, to an amount, 
which rendered it of little or no value. Will Mr. Lowell, 
then, condescend to inform us, how the taking of the foundry, 
only J out of Mr. Boott's hands, and appropriating his interest 
in that, (for he could not appropriate that of his partners,) in 
any manner he may have pointed out, could be an object of 
such great desire, on account of Mrs. Boott ? Mr. Lowell 
assures us, that Mr. Boott had, intentionally, used no part 
of his fathers estate in that investment. [L. p. 87.] Why 
then, if the foundry was the only property at hazard, and he 
was thinking only of that, as a thing to be in some way dis- 
posed of, why did he apprehend that his poor mother''s means 
would be so diminished as to destroy her comfort and hap- 
piness, and cause her, perhaps, to sink under the blow ? 

What had the foundry, on Mr. Lowell's theory, to do with 
Mrs. Boott ? And when, in express and direct reference to 
her trust fund and her means, Mr. J. Wright Boott wishes 
that ^Hhe property" were in other hands, to be appropriated 
as he had pointed out, what property can he possibly intend, 
but that, on which his mother was dependent ? And what 
was the property, on which she was, at that time, dependent ? 
According to my theory, it was all the property Mi\ Boott 
held, subject to his other debts, — for none of it was distin- 



320 

guishable from the rest as her trust fund. But, at any 
rate, even according to Mr. LoioelVs theory, it was not the 
foundry^ — for in that, he assures us, no trust money had been 
intentionally put, and that Mrs. Boott's trust fund was com- 
plete without that investment. [L. p. 87.] Yet, for the 
sake of his argument, Mr. Lowell does not scruple to assert, 
that the foundry, alone^ was here spoken of by Mr. Boott ! 

We have seen what goes before, let us see what follows 
the sentence in question. Mr. J. Wright Boott adds, " I am 
bound hand and foot, and can do nothing of myself." Why 
does Mr. Boott say this ? His idea waSy plainly enough, (when 
we see what his real position was,) that the claims upon him 
were so many, and so large, in proportion to his means, and so 
conflicting, that he could do nothing, unless some arrangement 
of compromise could be made, whereby, either some of the 
claimants should yield a preference to others, or all consent to 
relinquish a portion of their claims upon an insufficient fund. 
That, which he feared, was, that not an iota would be yielded, 
except by certain members of his own family ; that any 
yielding, by them, would be at the expense of the common 
family trust fund ; and, consequently, that his mother's means 
would be more diminished than they would be by an equal 
distribution of all his assets among all his creditors, including 
his father's estate. For, says he, " if the children are paid in 
full, and this claim of theirs [Lyman & Ralston's] alsOy the 
whole burthen will fall upon my poor mother." It must all 
come out of her $100,000. His wish was that Lyman & 
Ralston might be induced to yield their claim, in order to 
save for his mother as much of that sum as possible, by 
giving her a preference ; and, by way of an argument to be 
addressed to them, through their wives, as heirs of his father, 
he concludes thus: — ''It is certainly for the interest of the 
heirs, that the fund left to my mother should be made good ; 
it will come to them eventually." 

I believe no reader, who has attended to the evidence of 
Mr. J. Wright Boott's pecuniary position, and the position of 
the family property in his hands, at this period, will fail to 
perceive, from Mr. J. Wright Boott's own language alone, 



321 

that his meaning has now been truly expounded. But this is 
not all we have to go by. We get this language of Mr. J, 
Wright Boott, only as it is quoted by Mr. Kirk Boott, in his 
letter to me. Now how did Mr. Kirk Boott understand it ? 
Does he say, — or does he leave room for any man of common 
intelligence, and common fairness of mind, to infer, — that the 
foundry, only^ was the thing to be assigned ? On the con- 
trary, — bearing in mind the fact, which has been placed be- 
yond dispute, and is not denied by Mr. Lowell, that there was 
no property then held by Mr. J. Wright Boott as executor, or 
as trustee, but that the shares, the store, the stable, Lilly's 
note, and an midivided portion of the foundry, were all, in 
point of legal title, equally his own, — the language of Mr. Kirk 
Boott, immediately following the citation from his brother's 
note, cannot admit of two constructions, on the point in 
question. It is : — 

" I have written to him a few lines, to say that I will be in town 
on Saturday ; but how to advise or assist him, is more than I can 
tell. But for L. & R.'s affairs, I have no doubt that an assignment 
of all his property, out of which F. B.'s heirs' claim should be first 
paid, and the residue divided among the other creditors, would be the 
most advisable course." [Ante, p. 276.] 

And who, we may ask, by the way, were the ^' other cred- 
itors," if " L. & R.'s affairs " were out of the way ? Mr. Kirk 
Boott does not leave that doubtful ; for, in another letter, 
written a few days later, he says, '' My own opinion is, that 
J. W. B, should at once assign all his property, fii'st, to secure 
F. B.'s heirs, and next the estate and heirs of my father.^'' 
Ante, p. 278.] 

This, it will be observed, is very material for its bearing 
on a more comprehensive question than we are now discuss- 
ing. But, to adhere to the precise point in present dispute, 
was it, as Mr. Lowell pretends, an assignment of the foundry, 
alone, that Mr. J. Wright Boott had been consulted about ? — 
or was it, as Mr. Kirk Boott assumes, an assignment of " all 
his property " ? 

The reader now has, I believe, the materials for judge- 
ment before him. I ask him to judge, since fairness is m 

41 



322 

question, who makes the misrepresentation 7 — I, who have 
represented that an assignment of all the property, held by 
Mr. Boott, was the thing under consideration ? — or Mr. Low- 
ell, who represents that no assignment was ever dreamed of 
except of the foundry ? I, who show to the reader, connect- 
edly, all that Mr. J. Wright Boott wrote, and all that Mr. 
Kirk Boott wrote, on that subject ? or Mr. Lowell, who 
picks out tioo lines, and shows them to the reader, without 
their context, as if they were all that bore upon the question ? 
Or, to draw the matter more closely to the very point, at which 
we started, who gives the '^ false impression ^^ ? — I, who, by 
Italicizing the word "■ resignation," endeavour, as Mr. Lowell 
says, '' to create the impression" that what he calls '' the trust 
fundsj^ (meaning, I presume, the shares of manufacturing 
stock, then held by Mr. J. Wright Boott as his own, but 
afterwards put in trust,) were intended by him as part of 
''the property," which he wished were out of his hands? — 
or Mr. Lowell, who endeavours to persuade his reader, that 
Mr. Boott intended nothing but the foundry ? and who, to 
promote that false belief, specifies my emphasis on the word 
" resignation," as an instance of " misrepresentation,^"^ adapted 
to support his general charge of '' a practice of conveying a 
false impression by Italicizing certain words or passages," be- 
cause its tendency was '' to create the impression " that Mr. 
J. Wright Boott wished ''■all the property," in which others 
were interested, out of his hands ? 

The other instance, specified, of supposed false Italicizing 
is in the sentence, from Mr. Kirk Boott 's letter, alluding to 
the resignation of the Suffolk agency. It stood printed thus, 
in the appendix of my former pamphlet : — 

" Now such an occurrence as this, in which R.'s statements alone 
were taken, being immediately followed hy J. W. B.'s resignation^ for 
which no adequate motives could he openly assigned, did not, in my 
mind, admit of a doubtful interpretation." [B. App. p. 20.] 

Mr. Lowell comments upon this, as if, like the former in- 
stance, the word '' resignation " had been Italicized singly 
and particularly ; and as if it had been so Italicized for the 



323 

purpose of inducing the reader to believe that a resignation of 
the executorship was the thing, here also, alluded to, instead 
of the resignation of the Suffolk agency ; and the object of 
inducing that belief in the reader is supposed to have been to 
strengthen the false impression, as Mr. Lowell represents it, 
that an assignment of all Mr. J. Wright Boott's property was 
contemplated, instead of an assignment of the foundry alone. 
The misrepresentation on that point, I think, I have fixed on 
Mr. Lowell. 

But whence does he infer that I intended to induce the 
reader to believe, that a resignation of the executorship was 
alluded to in this letter? From nothing but the fact that 
the word resignation is one of the words contained in the 
two lines, which, as above shown, were printed in Italics, in 
my appendix. Now, as before remarked, many sentences of 
Mr. Kirk Boott's letters, which I wished the reader to note 
as illustrating something, which had been said by me, were so 
printed, in that appendix, without comment, or reference to 
any particular part of my text. In the course of my text, I 
had, among other things, repeatedly mentioned the privacy, 
which the late Mr. Kirk Boott and myself judged it necessary 
to observe, concerning Mi\ J. Wright Boott's true position, — 
a degree of privacy leading us even to take the responsibility of 
withholding that information from the other heirs, for reasons, 
which will presently be more apparent. One example reads 
thus :— " This state of affairs, confidentially known to Mr. 
Kirk Boott and myself, as appears hy his letters in the ap- 
pendix, was, of course, carefully kept, as far as possible, from 
the knowledge of others." [B. p. 40.] I also spoke of the 
'' entire confidence and union of views," which had formerly 
subsisted between the late Mr. Kirk Boott and myself, con- 
cerning the family affairs under Mr. J. Wright Boott's admin- 
istration. I spoke of them as shown hy Mr. Kirk Booties 
letters ; and I expressed my belief, that, under the altered 
circumstances, which led to Mr. J. Wright Boott's resignation 
of his trust, in 1844, Mr. Kirk Boott, if living, would have 
deemed it necessary, as I did, and as Mr. William Boott did, 
that such a resignation should be made. In that connexion, 



324 

speaking of the letters, I incidentally remarked, " They show, 
besides^ that even a resignation of the executorship, at a 
proper time, was an event he [Mr. Kirk Boott] looked forward 
to as long ago as 1831 ; and which, as I know, he thought 
very desirable." [B. p. 94.] 

In none of these remarks did I point to any particular pas- 
sage of the letters ; but I referred to the letters, generally, as 
to be found in an appendix ; leaving the reader to make the 
particular application. It is obvious that the passage in Ital- 
ics, particularized by Mr. Lowell, is, as it stands in the ap- 
pendix, literally capable of being referred to either of the 
two sentences of my text, which are above extracted. Mr. 
Lowell chooses to refer it to the last, by fixing on a single 
word, instead of the general idea expressed by the whole 
Italicized passage, which is, that the motive, for some resig- 
nation by Mr. J. W. Boott, there alluded to, could not be 
openly assigned. In that way, only, does he make out the 
supposed intentional misrepresentation. This seems far- 
fetched enough. The supposed intention of falsehood rests, 
entirely, on his own misapplication of my reference. That, 
which I had in my own mind, when I spoke of the letters 
as indicating that Mr. Kirk Boott looked to a surrender of the 
trust as a desirable thing, at a proper time and under proper 
circumstances, was, — not the particular passage, which Mr. 
Lowell selects for it, but — ^the idea, repeatedly thrown out 
and enforced in different passages of those letters, that there 
ought to be an assignment of all the property, " first, to 
secure F. B.'s heirs, and next, the estate and heirs of my 
father ;" [Ante, p. 278.] which plainly implied the appoint- 
ment of a new trustee for the estate, and would, of course, 
involve a resignation by Mr. J. Wright Boott. 

I have already pointed out the false gloss, which Mr. 
Lowell endeavours to put on these letters of Mr. Kirk Boott. 
[Ante, pp. 215, 274.] He does it, in the present instance, 
by selecting for his commentary an isolated sentence, quoted 
by Mr. Kirk Boott from his brother's note to him, and by 
misinterpreting that sentence, without giving his readers the 
means of perceiving, by the context, that there is a misin- 



325 

terpretation. A particular construction of that passage in 
Mr. J. Wright Boott's note is the point, which Mr. Lowell 
supposes me to have remotely aimed at, by Italicizing the 
word resignation in each of the " two very curious in- 
stances," which he selects for his animadversion. If I have 
succeeded in satisfying the reader that the language of Mr. 
J. Wright Boott is not mzsinterpreted by me, and that it is 
by Mr. Lowell, I must, of course, stand acquitted of any in- 
tention to mislead, or object in misleadi?ig, upon the subor- 
dinate question, what resignation Mr. Kirk Boott alluded 
to in the sentence now under consideration, which is the 
second instance of false Italicizing specified. 

If, therefore, any body has been in fact misled on this lat- 
ter point, as Mr. Lowell affects to believe, it has happened 
through an inadvertence, at most, and not by design. Even 
this I should regret, exceedingly, notwithstanding that the 
general idea, which, according to Mr. Lowell, the Italicizing 
was intended to convey, is in perfect accordance with the 
truth, and that the question, what resignation Mr. Kirk Boott 
was speaking of, is, of itself, quite immaterial. I, certainly, 
cannot claim to have misunderstood, myself, the allusion to 
the agency of the Suffolk Manufacturing Co. Indeed, it is 
referred to, by name, in the same letter ; for Mr. Kirk Boott 
says, '' I do not, under all circumstances, think it very im- 
portant that J. W. B. should take the agency of the Suffolk 
Co." [Ante, p. 280.] But an ambiguity has now been point- 
ed out by Mr. liOwell, arising from the want of distinct ref- 
erences in the appendix of my former pamphlet ; and I was, 
perhaps, faulty in not having explained this passage to the 
reader. The acceptance, and the subsequent resignation, of 
that agency, were among the facts, of which I had made a 
memorandum, with a view to the preparation of my former 
statement ; but I, finally, omitted to mention them, in that 
statement, because I found they would lead to remarks some- 
what more extended than their significance, then, seemed 
to justify. The use made of them by Mr. Lowell, in con- 
nexion with certain letters printed by him, gives them a 
new importance ; and after this digression, concerning my 



326 

supposed practice of misrepresenting, by using a particular 
form of type, I shall, now, return to the matter, which led 
to it, and consider the true bearing of certain letters, which 
are published by Mr. Lowell. 



CHAPTEE XXXIII. 

MR. Jackson's letter of may 8, 1831. 



The letters mentioned in the last chapter, as published by 
Mr. Lowell, are from the late Mr. P. T. Jackson, and the 
late Mr. Kirk Boott. They relate to Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
resignation of the agency of the Suffolk Manufacturing Com- 
pany, and to a proposal, soon after, for the employment of 
that gentleman upon a mission to England, for the purchase 
of railroad iron. 

It is hardly necessary for me to say, that no man, not a 
near relative, has a higher respect, or warmer regard, for the 
memory of the late Patrick T. Jackson, and for that of the 
late Kirk Boott, of Lowell, than I have. These distin- 
guished names, as I may justly call them, carrying, as they 
deserve, no small influence in this community, Mr. Lowell 
has seen fit to invoke to his aid, for supposed opinions, totally 
inconsistent, as he represents, with my former statements 
concerning Mr. J. Wright Boott's conduct, and concerning 
Mr. Kirk Boott's sentiments. He hopes, apparently, to over- 
whelm, in public opinion, so inconsiderable a person as I am, 
with the weight of '' the highest authority," [L. p. 101.] 
added to his own, and at the same time to effect, for him- 
self, an escape from the pressure of facts and evidence, which 
he could not otherwise answer. But he entirely mistook 
his man, if he supposed that I should succumb to any false- 
hood, promulgated under a parade of great names to give it 



327 

countenance ; and I flatter myself that he has mistaken, also^ 
the understanding of his readers, when they shall see the evi- 
dence arrayed, and perceive, as they will, after the facts are 
before them, that there is no such inconsistency, between 
the cited opinions and my statements, as a first imperfect 
vision, through Mr. Lowell's atmosphere, may have led them 
to imagine. 

Under the general proposition, " that Mr. Boott was, in 
substance, whatever he might be, in form, a remarkably good 
manager of trust property," [L. p. 97.] Mr. Lowell intro- 
duces, first, Mr. Boott's account with his ward, which I have 
already commented on, [Ante, Ch. 16.] and then says, ^'I 
shall now cite the testimony of a person, whose competency 
to judge Mr. Brooks will hardly dispute, and who, knowing 
all the facts of those embarrassments, on which Mr. Brooks 
has laid such stress, expressed, concerning Mr. Boott, the 
opinions I shall quote." [L. p. 99.] This is the prelude to 
Mr. Jackson's letter of May 8, 1831. 

I am obliged to Mr. Lowell for producing that letter. It 
is not only a " contemporaneous exposition," valuable in it- 
self, but it brings up another '' reminiscence." The letter was 
written at my own suggestion, upon consultation with Mr. 
Kirk Boott, after conferences with Mr. Jackson and Mr. 
Lowell. 

To show how this arose, I must explain the circumstan- 
ces. I have already stated that Mr. Kirk Boott and myself 
knew that Mr. J. Wright Boott must be largely indebted 
to his father's estate ; how largely we did not know. I, 
at least, had no means of forming an opinion, except such 
as I have before mentioned. I knew, besides, from Mr. 
Kirk Boott, that he had been called upon by his brother, 
several years before, to refund a large sum on account of 
losses formerly sustained by the mercantile house, in which 
they had once been partners ; and that the occasion of 
the call was, as Mr. Kirk Boott understood, a settlement 
proposed to be made by Mr. J. Wright Boott, as executor, 
with the other heirs of his father's estate. The evidence 
of this I formerly exhibited, and shall presently advert to 



328 

again. No such settlement, however, was in fact made by 
the executor, although the partnership account was adjusted 
between him and Mr. Kirk Boott. I had no doubt, — and I 
think I derived that impression, also, from Mr. Kirk Boott, — 
that other refunding was due from some other heirs, if dis- 
tributions of the estate among all the heirs were to be equal- 
ized. In confirmation of this idea, I may add, that Mr. 
Lowell has repeatedly declared, (though he takes no notice 
of it now,) that one reason, why Mr. J. Wright Boott had 
delayed a settlement of the accounts of the estate, was, that 
he could not have settled them without making his brothers 
bankrupt. 

However this may have been, a subject frequently con- 
versed about, between Mr. Kirk Boott and myself, and in 
which we concurred, was the great importance of getting 
from Mr. J. Wright Boott a statement and settlement of his 
family accounts. Until the disclosure of 1830, I never sup- 
posed he would find the least difficulty, in settling them, 
from a want of sufficient pecuniary means to pay to every 
heir the full amount that might be due. But, after that dis- 
closure, it had become apparent, that any settlement of the 
executor's accounts must result in a balance of large in- 
debtedness by Mr. J. Wright Boott to the estate, or to some 
of its heirs, beyond his ability to pay. 

There never was, perhaps, a family, composed of so many 
individuals, less actuated than this family, (I do not, of 
course, speak of myself,) by mere selfish considerations of 
pecuniary interests. The fault, if there were any, in money 
matters, was rather in too little, than too much, regard for 
them. This was especially true of Mr. J. Wright Boott ; 
and perhaps, might be justly said of all. If Mr. J. Wright 
Boott and the other members of the family had been but 
ordinarily attentive to proper settlements, the duty of which 
devolved, in an especial manner, upon him, probably no great 
loss of property would ever have happened ; — certainly not 
the miserable confusion and doubtfulness, respecting the true 
state of the family affairs, which arose. But it was evident in 
1830-1, that a great mischief had already happened, and that 



329 

it could not be helped. There was but so much property re- 
maining, in Mr. J. Wright Boott's hands, to meet all the calls 
upon it ; and the only thing to be done was to make the best 
of that, and to save, what could then be saved, from the wreck. 
As to reclamations for the past, by one heir upon another, or 
by any of them upon the executor, there was a perfect willing- 
ness, all round, so far as I know or believe, (that is, there was, 
I know, on the part of those, who were acquainted with the 
true posture of affairs, and I have no doubt there would have 
been on the part of every other heir, when informed of it,) to 
settle upon the basis of the " uti possidetis ^''^ (as Mr. Lowell 
has it,) leaving every one to keep what he had formerly got 
under the belief that he was well entitled to it, and securing 
only what remained in the hands of Mr. J. Wright Boott, for 
the benefit of Mrs. Boott during her life, and the advantage of 
the heirs afterwards. 

The probability is, that, if we had ever come, through Mr. 
J. Wright Boott, to a general family settlement, every one, 
who had received more than an equal share, — estimating 
that, which had been distributed, together with that, which 
Mr. Boott still possessed, after providing for indispensable 
debts out of the family, — instead of waiting to be urged, 
would have been forward to insist, on restoring his excess, 
to the best of his ability. There would have been, in my 
belief, a contest of liberality, and not of extortion. At least, 
without affecting any "lofty indifference," as Mr. Lowell 
says I do, "to pecuniary considerations," [L. p. 105.] I may 
say, for myself, that I was disposed to do full justice, to say 
no more, when I saw the actual condition of the estate ; and 
knowing that Mrs. Brooks had received, in the furnishing of 
our house, a sum, which did not appear to have been allowed 
to some, or to one, at least, of the other heirs, who seemed 
equally entitled to it, I was apprehensive that it might be 
proper for me to refund something, and in that case I was 
anxious to do so, if I could only find out how others stood, 
so as to know what was the proper thing to be done. 

With respect to Mr. J. Wright Boott's indebtedness to the 
estate, whether more or less, such was the kindness and gen- 

42 



330 

erosity towards him^ in the family, that there would have 
been not a moment's hesitation in relieving him from any 
claim of the heirs for the past, if the property left from the 
ruin could be preserved. This is not mere speculation ; the 
release, afterwards given, in 1833, proves it. But the diffi- 
culty was to get at the accounts, and to know how matters 
really stood. 

With few exceptions, no heir knew what any other had 
received ; and, without any exception, no heir knew, but 
Mr. J. Wright Boott, — and I doubt whether he did himself, 
from the manner, in which the business appears to have been 
managed, — what the whole estate had amounted to, or how 
much he was justly accountable for. Yet the family, general- 
ly, had the utmost confidence that every thing in his hands 
would, eventually, turn out right ; and I believe none of them, 
except Mr. Kirk Boott and myself, had any idea, in 1831, 
how small a property was remaining in the executor's hands, 
or to what extent it was encumbered by his private engage- 
ments. My statement, above, respecting the desirableness of 
an exhibition of the accounts in my opinion, and in that of 
Mr. Kirk Boott, is confirmed by his letter to me, above 
quoted, — written seven or eight months before this month of 
May, 1831, — which begins, "If such a statement as you 
have recommended can be made up, which I fear J. W. will 
find almost impossible, it certainly would greatly facilitate 
the settlement. The truth may be approximated, if not cor- 
rectly ascertained." [Ante, p. 275.] Without pretending to 
recollect the terms, or the precise tenor, of the particular rec- 
ommendation here referred to, I think it probable that its 
substance was, the making of such a statement as would 
s}iow the sums, which Lyman & Ralston were then entitled 
to receive from Mr. J. Wright Boott, as executor. This 
would involve, of course, all his accounts with the estate. 

What I have said as to the ignorance of any one heir, 
attended with some natural curiosity, respecting the receipts 
of others, may be illustrated by the following passage from a 
letter of Mr. Ralston to me, dated, " Philadelphia, Nov. 19, 



331 

1830)" referring to certain stocks, held by some of the heirs, 
who had received them through Mr. J. Wright Boott : — 

EXTRACT FROM A Letter of Mr. ROBERT RALSTON, Jr. 

" You may remember a list of the Stockholders of certain Compa- 
nies, which I once showed to you. Upon looking over my papers, I 
have found it. I find that our friend W. W. [Mr. Wm. Weils] has 
standing in his name six Merrimacks, three Walthams, and six Locks 
and Canals, — Jas. B. [Mr. James Boott] five Merrimacks and five 
Walthams. You were under the impression, I believe, that the former 
had none of the Locks and Canals. The dates of the list are, for the 
Mc. [Merrimack] Dec. 1827; B. M. C. [Boston Manufacturing Com- 
pany] April, 1828; L. and C. [Locks and Canals] Oct. 1827. The 
list I shall bring on with me." 

Mr. Kirk Boott and myself, with the knowledge we had, 
in May, 1831, from the disclosure made to us by Mr. J. 
Wright Boott in 1830, could not but perceive that there had 
been most unfortunate management, and that the strict 
duties of a trustee had been quite disregarded. But we con- 
sidered that Mr. J. Wright Boott had been placed in a very 
difficult position, as sole surviving partner of his father, 
sole executor of his will, sole trustee under it, sole guardian 
of the minor children, and leading partner of the new house 
formed by the sons ; that he had entered into engagements, 
which had proved losing ones, confident of success, and 
with the desire and expectation of helping others of the 
family, more than himself; that his use of the family funds, 
in speculation and trade, though improper, had been in- 
tended for the common benefit, and not for his own separ- 
ate advantage ; that he had been drawn in, by degrees, deep- 
er than he had contemplated ; that great embarrassment 
and loss had consequently happened to the funds of the es- 
tate ; that this evil had resulted, very much, from his own 
mistaken notions and peculiar views of his rights and au- 
thority over the family property, which led him to look upon 
himself as standing in his father's place, with full power to 
dispose of it as he thought best for the common good, just 
as if the property had been his own ; — and that these pe- 
culiarities had been fostered and enlarged by the manner, in 



332 

which all the members of the family had deferentially submit- 
ted to his management from the beginning, without account 
or question ;— and, fully appreciating many admirable traits 
of character, for which I have heretofore given him credit, 
we believed that there was nothing in the case, under all 
its circumstances, so far as known to us, which touched his 
integrity, or which ought to impair the general good opin- 
ion, in which he was held. Yet, we could not but be sensi- 
ble, that, a knowledge, among strangers, of any deficiency 
in his trust accounts, without a knowledge of all the cir- 
cumstances, which had led to it, must tend to injure him 
in general estimation. His own overwhelming sense of his 
misfortune, apprehension of its publicity, and sensitiveness 
upon such subjects, are illustrated in his language, quoted by 
Mr. Kirk Boott. [Ante, pp. 275 — 6.] These feelings made 
it impossible for his own brother, — still more for me, while 
that brother was holding back, — to go to him, under such 
circumstances, and peremptorily to insist that his accounts 
should be stated and settled, though we never doubted that 
a statement of them would end in his discharge, by the 
heirs, from all liability beyond the property he then held. 

In respect to his entanglement with Lyman & Ralston, so 
far as a settlement between the parties themselves was con- 
cerned, it appeared to us that its most serious impediment 
was the want of the family accounts,- — Messrs. Lyman and 
Ralston believing, not unreasonably, that large sums were due 
to them, respectively, as heirs, beyond what they had re- 
ceived, and which ought to be included in the partnership 
settlement, as an offset to Mr. J. Wright Boott's alleged over- 
advances to the foundry. And if they, (Messrs. Boott, Ly- 
man and Ralston,) could only be brought to an agreement, 
among themselves, as to proper terms, on which Mr. Boott 
might be permitted to retire from the obligations of the 
partnership, we had strong hopes that the desire and ability 
of Mr. Ralston's family and friends to sustain hini^ would 
lead to some arrangement for the satisfaction of the joint 
creditors, so as to prevent their coming upon Mr. Boott, and 
to leave the property, exclusive of the foundry, to be applied. 



333 

first, to the payment of his wards, and then to secure the 
trust funds, and the heh"s, of his father's estate, so far as 
the means would allow. Bat the very first step seemed to 
be to get Mr. J. Wright Boott to investigate and state, as 
well as he could, his family accounts ; — and this included 
his accounts as guardian to the children of Mr. F. Boott, the 
estate being bound for the deficiency there, estimated round- 
ly at $20,000, but of which the exact truth was quite un- 
known to us, for want of the accounts. It now appears that 
the debt was much larger than we then supposed. In the 
mean time, regard to Mr. J. Wright Boott's reputation and 
credit imposed on us, of course, the utmost caution, in keep- 
ing what we knew to ourselves, except Avhen some useful 
object was to be gained by a confidential communication. 

So much for the position and views of Mr. Kirk Boott 
and myself. 

In regard to Mr. Lowell, he stood peculiarly. He had 
been an apprentice, or clerk, in the counting-room of Kirk 
Boott & Sons, and afterwards a partner, in the same business, 
with Mr. J. Wright Boott, under the firm of Boott & Lowell. 
He Avas considerably acquainted, from these circumstances, 
with the family affairs. He was looked upon as the most 
confidential friend of Mr. J. Wright Boott, out of the family, 
and was supposed to be a common friend to all of us. He 
was, besides, Mr. J. Wright Boott's largest creditor ; and, 
being himself amply secured, it was thought he might ren- 
der efficient aid, in bringing affairs to a settlement with oth- 
ers. He was therefore, pretty early, taken into our counsel. 

Mr. Jackson was not only intimate with Mr. Kirk Boott 
and with Mr. Lowell, and on the most friendly terms with 
myself, but he had been associated with Mr. J. Wright 
Boott, as well as with Mr. Kirk Boott, in the Chelmsford 
speculation, the origin of the city of Lowell. He had the 
highest opinion of Mr. Kirk Boott, whom he and Mr. Nathan 
Appleton had early selected for the agency of that important 
concern. The wisdom of their choice had been proved by 
the event. For that reason, perhaps, Mr. Jackson may have 
been the more inclined to select Mr. J. Wright Boott, also, 



334 

for an agency at Lowell, having formed, no doubt, a favour- 
able opinion of his general character, intelligence, and capa- 
city. At any rate, Mr. Jackson had interested himself, warm- 
ly, in causing the selection of Mr. J. Wright Boott for the 
agency of the Suffolk Manufacturing Company. 

This appointment, and Mr. J. Wright Boott's acceptance 
of it, were subjects of great gratification to all the members 
of the famxily ; particularly to those of us, who knew most 
of his embarrassments, and just in proportion to our knowl- 
edge of them. It seemed to open a way, for him, to get out 
of a bad business into a good one, as Mr. Kirk Boott had 
done before him, with great success. Such a new career, 
once entered upon, it was hoped might, gradually, lead to the 
retrievement of the family affairs in his hands, and of his 
own. Even Mr. Ralston, though still an unbeliever in the 
fact that the business of the foundry was a bad one, appears 
to have seen that some advantage would be derived from 
Mr. J. Wright Boott's removal to this new sphere. I refer, 
for this, to a letter from Mr. Ralston to me, dated at Phila- 
delphia, in Nov. 1830. He had been informed, it seems, that 
this agency would be offered to Mr. J. Wright Boott, but 
that he would probably refuse it. In reference to that he 
writes : — " I hope, sincerely, that such may not be the result, 
as I should hope for better things if he were to accept the 
agency." 

But although he did agree to accept it, in January, 1831, 
still, before entering upon the duties of the office, it was 
indispensable that he should close his engagements with 
Lyman & Ralston, and get rid of his responsibilities to the 
joint creditors. If that were done, it was thought that his 
liabilities to his wards, and to the members of his own family, 
and to his only other creditors, Messrs. Sturgis and Lowell, 
might be quietly arranged, among ourselves, so as to make 
the best of the remaining means, and leave to time and' 
prudence, such restoration of that, which had been lost, as 
future success might permit. Bat all this, as before remarked, 
required a statement and adjustment of accounts ; and how to 
approach Mr. J. Wright Boott on that subject, without 



335 

wounding his feelings, and, indeed, without giving mortal 
offence to his peculiar temper, was the problem. The pe- 
culiarity I speak of, and the reserve it created, is well illus- 
trated by a letter from Mr. Kirk Boott to me, of a little later 
date, (May 10, 1833,) in which he says, " 1 have some mis- 
givings, that, if I meddle at all, I may do more harm than 
good." ''If I can put into shape what I feel, so as to incur 
little risk of giving offence ^ I think I shall write to J. W. B. ; 
but I am very sensible how ticklish an affair this is.^^ [B. 
App. p. 29.] 

Mr. Jackson, upon tendering to Mr. J. Wright Boott the 
office of the Suffolk agency, became partially informed of 
the difficulties under which he laboured. Mr. Lowell affects 
to believe, that, upon that occasion Mr. J. Wright Boott must 
have gone into di,full disclosure of the extent of his embarrass- 
ments and of all his family affairs ;— such a disclosure, at 
least, as, in Mr. Lowell's opinion, rendered Mr. Jackson a 
competent judge upon the question, whether, or not, he was 
"a remarkably good manager of trust property,'' — the point 
to which he pretends to cite that gentleman. [L. p. 97-99. 
101.] This is very unlikely. The occasion did not call 
for it. A general declaration that he had been unfortunate, 
and had lost his property, and was under embarrassments and 
responsibilities, which he could not immediately get rid of, 
was all that the highest honour demanded in answer to such 
an invitation. It was not necessary to declare himself " a 
defaulter," (to use the strong expression of Mr. Lowell,) if 
he were so ; and as to his having disclosed to Mr. Jackson 
the true state of his accounts Avith his father's estate, and 
the whole position of the family property, if he did that, it 
is more than he ever disclosed to those, who were concerned 
to know these matters, and the reader may judge of its like- 
lihood. Indeed, it is scarcely possible that he should have 
made to Mr. Jackson a disclosure of his inability to make 
good the actual trust funds. I should certainly have heard 
of that, at the time, from Mr. Jackson, since I had repeated 
conversations with that gentleman on the subject of Mr. 



336 

Boott's acceptance of this agency, and the reasons he had 
assigned for doubting whether he should accept it. 

Mr. Jackson, it may be presumed, got such information, 
only, from Mr. J. Wright Boott, as the object of the visit, in 
Mr. Boott's opinion, entitled him to receive ; and he after- 
wards had, from Mr. Kirk Boott and myself, and, I may add, 
from Mr. Lowell, such further partial information as we 
thought proper for us to give, and no more. He never, to 
my knowledge, or in my belief, had the least idea of the 
very low and precarious condition, to which the family prop- 
erty was at that time reduced. Circumstances, however, 
now detailed, had established, after the appointment to the 
Suffolk agency, a certain degree of confidence between Mr. 
Jackson and myself and Mr. Kirk Boott, as well as Mr. Low- 
ell, concerning Mr. J. Wright Boott's affairs ; and Mr. Jack-- 
son was informed, among other things, that the real difficulty 
was to get Mr. J. Wright Boott to settle up long standing 
family accounts, which, with the desire of the family to aid 
him, might easily be done, if he would only set himself 
earnestly about it. 

Upon a suggestion first coming from me, it was agreed, 
between Mr. Kirk Boott and myself, that this was an oppor- 
tunity not to be lost ; that Mr. Jackson was, of all men, the 
fittest, after what had passed between him and Mr. J. Wright 
Boott, to bring about a statement of the executor^ s accounts, 
and that he could do it, without ofiiciousness and without 
offence, when nobody else could, upon the occasion of 
arranging with Mr. J. Wright Boott for a treasurer's bond, 
which his agency required. We, accordingly, at a subse- 
quent conference, urged our views upon Mr. Jackson, who 
approved them, and to oblige us, as well as to render a 
real service to Mr. J. Wright Boott, readily undertook a 
somewhat disagreeable task. He discharged it, with a deli- 
cacy, kindness, and directness, quite characteristic of him 
by the following letter, which I now reprint from the 
''Reply." [L. p. 100.] 



337 

LETTEK FROM Mr. P. T. JACKSON. 

"Waltham, 8tli May, 1831. 
My Dear Sik, 

The confidence and candor with which you explained to me your 
situation, when we conversed on the subject of your taking charge of 
the business of the Suffolk Manufacturing Company, leads me to hope 
you will not be displeased, if I take the liberty of giving my opinion 
as to the course necessary for you to pursue. 

The time has arrived when you should give bond as treasurer, 
and enter upon the duties of your office. That this has not been 
done, I believe arises from a reluctance on your part to settle up 
your accounts, which I suppose must be done, before you can give the 
necessary bond ; if I am right in my conjecture as to the cause of the 
delay, will you allow me to urge you to overcome this reluctance, and 
to proceed immediately to the settlement of your affairs, more particu- 
larly those of your own family, so as to commence your new business 
with that energy, which I know you will exert as soon as you have 
freed yourself from the weight which now oppresses you. 

When I engaged your services for the Suffolk Company, I felt 
assured that I had rendered them a service in obtaining a man well 
qualified to manage their affairs. The frank and candid manner, in 
which you explained your situation to me, produced no other alter- 
ation in my mind, than as it confirmed the opinion I had previously 
entertained of your perfect uprightness and integrity, and made me, 
if possible, better satisfied with my selection. 

That you were poorer than 1 had supposed, I regretted for your 
sake ; but I did not think this disqualified you for the office ; nor do 
I now think so. If however, you are under any engagements or 
embarrassments, which you cannot get rid of and which will occupy 
your time and thoughts, this may be a reason why you should decline 
taking charge of business for others. From your statements, I feel 
certain, that, with some exertion, you can free yourself from what 
now appears to you a heavy burden, to be borne for ever. 

If you think my remarks are too free, believe that I have made 
them from a sincere desire to serve you, and that I am very truly, 
and with much esteem and regard, 

Your friend, 

P. T. JACKSOK 

J. W. BooTT, Esq." 

It is much to be regretted that this letter had not appeared 
in Mr. Jackson's life-time. It would have been, at least, 
more agreeable to me, to have had his confirmation of the 
circumstances, in which it originated. But it is only neces- 
sary to read the letter itself, to see that something must have 
led to the writing of it, as it is written^ besides the mere 

43 



338 

calling for a treasurer's bond. That call required nothing 
more than a polite and friendly note, explaining its necessity. 
The letter goes far beyond this ; and I invite the reader's 
attention especially to the words, ^^ more particularly those of 
your own family f — which, although introduced in a way 
not to appear forced, really had nothing to do with the busi- 
ness, which forms the ostensible excuse for writing the letter. 
There was no imaginable reason, in respect to fitness for 
the agency J why Mr. Boott should settle his accounts with 
his own family, '' more particularly " than with other people. 
It may be noted, also, that Mr. Jackson speaks of the sup- 
posed necessity for settling up these accounts, and of Mr. 
Boott's reluctance to do so, as matters of ''conjecture." 
Would he have used that language, if he had been so fully 
informed of these matters hy Mr. J. Wright Boott, as Mr. 
Lowell supposes, instead of having had the real difficulty sug- 
gested to him by Mr. Kirk Boott and myself, as I aver to have 
been the fact ? Is the whole letter consistent with the idea of 
a direct disclosure from Mr. J. Wright Boott of any thing more 
than general embarrassment, and inability to get rid of all 
his responsibilities ? Mr. Lowell's call of attention to the 
expression, used by Mr. Jackson, "poorer than I had sup- 
posed," instead of "bankrupt" or "defaulter," — by way of 
argument to show that Mr. Boott could not, before that time, 
have lost all his own property, with much that belonged to 
others, — requires no answer. It proves only, as the rest of 
the letter does, that Mr. Boott had not disclosed the whole 
state of his case to Mr. Jackson, and that so much as he did 
disclose, Mr. Jackson desired to allude to in the most deli- 
cate way. 



339 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

EFFECT OF MR. JACKSOn's LETTER. FURTHER LETTERS URGING AN 
ACCOUNT, IN VAIN. OPINIONS ENTERTAINED OF MR. BOOTT. 

MOTIVES TO LONG FORBEARANCE AND ACQUIESCENCE. 

The effect of the letter from Mr. Jackson, mentioned in the 
last chapter, was, unfortunately, not such as we had hoped. 
There would have been no difficulty about furnishing the 
required bond. Friends enough stood ready to sign it, as 
Mr. Boott well knew. But nobody had the opportunity. 
Rather than make a statement of his family accounts, which, 
according to the letter, seemed to be an implied condition of 
the office, Mr. Boott, within three days after the receipt of 
this letter, sent in his resignation ! [L. p. 85.] Why was 
this ? — except that he could not bear the disclosure of so bad 
an account as he must disclose ? — or that he was not able to 
make up his accounts in a manner satisfactory to himself? — 
or that he feared to involve others^ with himself, in some 
loss of the common property, which could not be made good 
to those of the heirs, who had had no share in causing the 
loss ? This is not for me to explain ; — hut there is the fact, 
proved by Mr. Lowell himself ] and Mr. Lowell must choose 
among the alternatives to account for it. 

The conjecture among us, at the time, was, that Mr. Boott, 
in addition to his general reluctance to settle accounts, might 
have been startled at the idea of the bond, because of its re- 
quiring him to be obliged to somebody for suretyship. This 
led to a new suggestion from Mr. Kirk Boott. He thought 
of another advantageous employment for his brother, which 
would avoid that difficulty ; namely, the sending him to Eng- 
land to purchase iron for the Lowell Railroad, then about to be 
built under the direction of Mr. Jackson. This, being an or- 
dinary mercantile agency, would require no bond ; and it was 
a kind of commission, which Mr. J. Wright Boott was thought 



340 

well qualified to execute, since he had been devoting himself, 
for the last five years, to the study of the iron manufacture; 
and to its practice, in some branches, at the foundry, and had, 
also, the facility of established connexions in England. Mr- 
Kirk Boott first suggested it, I believe, to me, in the letter, 
heretofore quoted, of May 22, 1831. [Ante, pp. 279, 280.] It 
was coupled with the idea, that such an appointment "would 
give him [Mr. J. Wright Boott,] a consideration with those con- 
cerned with us," (that is, the gentlemen concerned at Lowell ;) 
"would turn the whole current of his ideas ;" and that he might, 
afterwards, get the agency of the Lawrence Company, then in 
contemplation, if he could be induced to accept it. [Ante, p. 
280.] I thought very well of the plan, after the transfers of 
property had been made, which, in acting under Mr. Kirk 
Boott's letter, seemed to me the pressing matter most imme- 
diately called for. 

Mr. Kirk Boott seems, shortly after, to have made a direct 
application on the subject to Mr. Jackson, as head of the Low- 
ell Railroad Co. ; and that gentleman answers in the letter 
of May 30, 1831, printed by Mr. Lowell, [L. p. 102.] and 
to which I refer. It contains nothing very material to the 
present purpose, except what has been already mentioned, 
— namely, the fact of Mr. Lowell's having agreed with Mr. 
Jackson that '' now is the time, if ever, when he [Mr. Boott,] 
should settle up every thing and free himself from all engage- 
ments and responsibilities on old concerns." If he should 
do that, the further opinion of those gentlemen, as expressed 
in the letter, was, that he ought to take the charge of the 
Suffolk Company, unless some good person should be found 
to take his place ; — to which Mr. Jackson adds, — " If this can 
be settled satisfactorily, I am sure he is the best man we can 
send to England." 

This letter of Mr. Jackson to Mr. Kirk Boott, was trans- 
mitted by Mr. Kirk Boott, in a letter from himself to his 
brother, [L. pp. 102-3.] which communicates the offer of 
Mr. Lowell to go to Philadelphia for the purpose of endeav- 
ouring to effect a settlement with the Ralstons. There are 
some passages in this last mentioned letter, which I may 



341 

have occasion to refer to in another connexion; but none 
material at present, except the following sentence, on which 
Mr. Lowell founds some comments ''However little you 
are inclined to think of yourself at this moment, I do con- 
sider it of the utmost importance, to your future happiness 
and usefulness, that you should be relieved from your em- 
barrassments.^' The letter then very earnestly urges upon 
Mr. J. Wright Boott to give to the subject " a calm and 
dispassionate consideration," and it expresses a fervent hope 
that he might arrive at the conclusion, formed by Mr. Kirk 
Boott himself, which, manifestly, was, that his brother should 
come to a complete settlement of accounts, and then ac- 
cept one or the other of the agencies proposed. 

Mr. J. Wright Boott had, then, before him, in these sev- 
eral letters, the concurrent opinion of Mr. Jackson, Mr. Low- 
ell, and his own brother, pressed with as much urgency 
as was likely to be tolerable even from them, that he must 
settle his accounts, as a first step to any useful employment, 
or lucrative pursuit. As for myself, he had told me, upon 
a former occasion, when I had called, by his own invita- 
tion, to advise and aid him, — the morning after his giv- 
ing me the memorandum of 1830, — " that he considered 
himself quite competent to manage his own affairs, and that 
when he should have any doubt of it, and should require my 
mterference, or advice, he would take care to let me know it.'* 
[B. p. 38.] Since that, I had, within a few days, been unhap- 
pily compelled, in the manner before shown, to obtain from 
him the transfers, just made, to secure the estate ; — which, 
though very readily given, to all appearance, left me I knew, 
at the moment, in no especial favour ; — and it was manifest 
that any further interference from me, about a family settle- 
ment, would only lead to a rupture. But I knew of Mr. Kirk 
Boott's letter at the time of his writing it, and it was plain, 
that, if that were not effectual, nothing else could be done, to 
obtain the accounts, short of coercion, attended by a family 
feud, and, worse than all, by inevitable publicity and ruin to 
Mr. J. Wright Boott, which would have defeated all our 
hopes and objects in attempting to rescue him from his un" 



342 ■ 

fortunate position. Yet these accounts, so urged, never came. 
Can Mr. Lowell tell us why? 

His only suggestion is, that Mr. Boott delayed the settle- 
ment, because he could not bear to bring in an account that 
would have made his brothers and sisters debtors to him ! 
[L. pp. 34, 58.] It would be a curiosity to see how Mr. 
Lowell would have made up that account, upon the state of 
affairs in May, 1831. He has, perhaps, shown ingenuity 
enough for it, in the account of 1844. 

The comment upon Mr. Jackson's letter to Mr. Kirk Boott, 
'' on the subject of employing his brother in a business [the 
purchasing of the iron] in which large sums of money must 
necessarily be intrusted to him, and where great accuracy 
and fidelity were required in the management," lies in the 
following query: — "Now is it to be believed, unless Mr. 
Brooks means to impeach the character of Mr. Kirk Boott 
also, that that gentleman would have recommended, or 
alloioed to he selected^ a person who had been guilty of the 
moral delinquencies attributed by Mr. Brooks to Mr. J. Wright 
Boott?" [L. p. 103.] 

The letter of Mr. Kirk Boott to his brother, which en- 
closed the letter from Mr. Jackson, is, in the first place, used 
by Mr. Lowell, as evidence that this plan of sending Mr. 
Boott to England, on business of the railroad, " originated 
with Mr. Kirk Boott," which I also state to have been the 
fact ; and, in the next place, a comment of admiration is 
made upon the '^ spontaneous tribute " paid to " his broth- 
er's disinterestedness," — a quality, which I also expressly 
conceded to him in an eminent degree. But the occasion 
of this "spontaneous tribute," doubtless, was some language 
of his brother, similar to that used in a cited letter, [Ante, p. 
275.] expressing his indifference, about himself, as to the 
means of subsistence, if his mother's comfort and happi- 
ness could be saved from destruction. It was, no doubt, 
thought, by Mr. Kirk Boott, to be the best mode of ap- 
proaching his brother on a delicate subject. A succeeding 
comment by Mr. Lowell relates to a different point; and I 
reserve that for another connexion. 



343 

The '' Reply" next introduces a passage from Mr. Kirk 
Boolt's letter to me, of May 22, 1831, (which I have above 
printed entire,) expressing the opinion that his brother is 
^'admirably qualified" for this business of purchasing iron in 
England, and that "the new concern," (rightly interpreted 
by Mr. Lowell to mean '' the Lawrence Manufacturing 
Company at Lowell, then just starting with the object 
of making and printing calicoes,") would be, on his return, 
"a much better field for him" than the Suffolk agency, 
which he had just resigned. The comment upon this 
is, that, "to suppose Mr. Kirk Boott entertained the views 
of Mr. Wright Boott's administration of the trust funds 
now attributed to him by Mr. Brooks, at the moment he 
was urging his claims to be appointed treasurer and agent 
of the Lawrence Manufacturing Company, with a capital of 
a million of dollars, is as much a libel on Mr. Kirk Bootfs 
memory as on that of his brother. ^^ It is asked, too, wheth- 
er the inference is not very reasonable that /, myself, could 
not have entertained such views at that time ; — whether 
it is credible that Mr. Kirk Boott, " then far from being rich, 
would have allowed the trust funds, under his father's will, 
to remain in the charge of a person, who had administered 
them as is represented by Mr. Brooks ;" — whether Mr. Brooks 
himself would have done so ; — whether, notwithstanding his 
aflfectation of " lofty indifference to mere pecuniary considera- 
tions," he extended " the same indifference to the interests of 
all the rest of the family ;" — and, being a trustee under Mr. 
Kirk Boott's will, since 1838, and affecting to be " peculiar- 
ly sensitive" on that subject, how happened it, it is further 
asked, " that he [Brooks] remained quiescent for six years ?" 
and " why was his conscience dormant, during that long pe- 
riod, to awaken only when, as I shall presently show, he 
had come to be on terms of personal hostility with Mr. 
Boott?" The conclusion on this head is, that "it is a little 
too much to ask the public to believe, that he [Brooks] ever 
seriously thought Mr. Boott to be the man this pamphlet 
would represent him, till he had become blinded by his own 
excited feelings of animosity ;^^ and that "it is very evident 



344 

that he did not believe, at that time, in any such default and 
insolvency as he noio attempts to make out.'''' [L. pp. 104 — 6,] 

Now I request the reader, who is blinded by no feeling 
in the case, to believe nothing but the inevitable deduction 
of his own faculties from the evidence given to him. If the 
above cited comments were ever so well warranted, and all 
the flourishes in them were nothing but literal truths, they 
would not alter a single fact in the case ; and proved facts 
are the things, which, after all, are to settle the merits of this 
controversy. 

But my answer to this whole course of commentary must 
have already suggested itself, mainly, to every intelligent 
reader. 

In the first place, it is utterly untrue that I had charg- 
ed Mr. Boott with any "moral delinquencies," unless neg- 
lecting to settle his accounts, and allowing trust funds to 
stand uninvested, and mingled with his own property, undis- 
tinguishably, deserve to be thus harshly designated. These 
are facts, which Mr. Lowell admits ; and, in respect to that 
species of delinquency, he says, himself, " the utmost that 
can be made of it is, that it was an irregularity ; and that 
after all, carelessness is not a crime." [L. p. 89.] In truth, 
I had gone much further than Mr. Lowell goes, in suggest- 
ing charitable defences for Mr. Boott; since I had stated 
all sorts of excuses, and palliations, from circumstances, 
which the " Reply" either takes no notice of, or attempts to 
discredit. I am aware, that Mr. Lowell affects to regard my 
remarks, on the passing of the account of 1844 at the pro- 
bate office, as imputations of fraud and perjury. I shall 
present my view of that, when I reach that subject. At 
present, it is enough to say, that all such gross imputations 
are of Mr. Lowell's coinage, not mine. They are the infer- 
ences, which he pleases to draw, or to pretend, and which I 
do not draw. Comments of this sort, as before remarked, 
do not alter the facts ; from them every unprejudiced reader 
will draw proper inferences for himself, so far as it is need- 
ful to draw any, respecting the character of Mr. J. Wright 
Boott. 



345 

In the next place, as to the recommendation of that gen- 
tleman, by Mr. Kirk Boott, his brother, for these several offi- 
ces and agencies, I have already stated that no impeach- 
ment of Mr. J. Wright Boott's honour, integrity, honest in- 
tentions, and good motives, had arisen, either in my mind, or, 
as I believe, in that of Mr. Kirk Boott, from his mismanage- 
ment of the trust funds, under all the known circumstances 
of the case, including his peculiar and most extraordinary 
ideas of his own supremacy over the family property. They 
went so far that he once stated to me, that his father intend- 
ed, by his will, " to give him all he left over $100,000 !" [B. 
p. 59.] 

So, in respect to his competency^ at that time, for the situa- 
tions proposed, though that was, necessarily, in a degree, ex- 
perimental, nobody doubted his general intelligence, and 
power of application, even to details of business, if he 
pleased to exert it. It was notorious, too, that he had been, 
for many years, bestowing his whole mind upon studies 
and pursuits congenial to the kinds of business proposed for 
him ; and it was believed that he must, thereby, have acquired 
considerable experience, and much valuable information. 
What reason was there, then, to distrust, beforehand, his suit- 
ableness for the limited duties proposed ? 

Nobody imagined, that Mr. J. Wright Boott, if sent abroad, 
with a credit upon London, to purchase iron, would put the 
money in his own pocket, and run away with it. Nobody 
feared, because he had mismanaged family funds, over which 
he had been permitted, for years, to exercise an unlimited 
discretionary control, without accounting to any one, that he 
would divert, to speculative uses of his own, money intrusted 
to him by persons, with whom he stood in no familiar rela- 
tion, and to whom he must, in the course of that business, 
be constantly and statedly accountable. Nor was there any 
reason to doubt, that, with the usual aid of competent clerks, 
he would be able to keep, under the eye of intelligent di- 
rectors of a great manufacturing corporation, suitable ac- 
counts, to inform them, from time to time, of its affairs. 
There was no great reason to apprehend, that he would 

44 



346 

imagine, under these necessary checks and restraints, as he 
did, in the case of his father's estate, from the utter want of 
them, and from long habit of absohite dominion, that the 
property was pretty much his own, to do with as he pleased, 
or that a body of manufacturers, with a capital of a maillion 
of dollars, intended, by making him their treasurer, "to give 
him all over $100,000." 

But, beyond all this, it is not to be forgotten, that both his 
failings and his qualifications were judged of by the friendly 
eye of a brother, directed to a turning point in a brother's 
life, — a point, which presented the serious issue, whether a 
man, who is now described by Mr. Lowell as so richly gifted, 
and who, all agreCj had many interesting and valuable traits, 
should be raised from the depths of his embarrassments to a 
probability of future usefulness, acquisition and honour, or 
should be allowed to sink, forever, into a certainty of hopeless 
poverty, insolvency, and despondence, with danger of public 
disgrace. Such was the question for Mr. Kirk Boott to act 
upon. Is it not, then, a libel, indeed, on Mr. Kirk Boott's 
memory, to suggest, as Mr. Lowell does, that if he knew that 
this brother, though acting with honest intentions and gener- 
ous motives, had injudiciously managed and lost much family 
property, in the manner and under the circumstances stated, 
he himself would, or should, on that account, have utterly 
abstained from ordinary fraternal recommendation and influ- 
ence, to procure him an agency or oflice, for which he was 
believed to be otherwise well qualified', and in which he 
would not be exposed to the temptation, or to the possibility, 
of committing similar errors ? Is Mr. Lowell so stern an 
advocate for truth, and the whole truth, under all circum- 
stances, as to hold, that it was rather the duty of Mr. Kirk 
Boott, in these circumstances, not even to have " allowed to 
be selected " such a brother for such an agency ?^but rather 
to have interfered to prevent it, by volunteering a discovery 
of all that had happened, and publishing him as a "bank- 
rapt" and a '' defaulter" ?— for those are the gentle terms, 
which Mr. Lowell chooses to apply to the exact case. Most 



347 

readers, I apprehend, will be slow to arrive at such harsh 
judgements. 

In respect to Mr. Kirk Boott's acquiescence, during the 
residue of his life, and my own acquiescence, then, and long 
after that gentleman's decease, in a position of the family- 
property so extremely unsatisfactory, what was the alterna- 
tive ? Communication of the fact to all the family, and 
application to the Judge of Probate to compel the account, 
which Mr. J. Wright Boott, though much urged, would not 
voluntarily render. In other words, the sole alternative was, 
destruction of the family peace ; domestic parties and feuds ; 
publication of a brother's default, who was not believed to 
have been a defaulter by design, or for a selfish end ,* and all 
this while he was doing nothing, and threatening nothing, to 
aggravate the mischief, which had already happened, and 
which could not be thereby remedied ; and when he had, 
already, deprived himself, to some extent, of the power to 
commit further accidental waste, by having marked, as trust 
property, all the property there was left ; and while there was, 
for a long time at least, a faint hope that he might yet turn 
himself to some new and useful employment, tending to im- 
prove the condition of affairs. 

In 1844, it will be seen, in due time, that an entirely dif- 
ferent state of facts existed. The family peace was already 
broken ; the parties were formed ; the feuds had grown up ; 
all hope of improvement was passed ; further waste, though 
not yet extensive, had become visible ; the symptoms of 
incompetency for such a trust had become aggravated into 
partial insanity, believed by some, disputed by others ; and 
above all, there was an act to be done, or refused, according 
to which more trust property would, or would not, be put 
into his hands, without security, and with almost a promise 
beforehand that it was to be applied to a particular use, 
destructive to the interests of those, to whom it belonged. 
By whose fault, or what misfortune, all this happened, the 
sequel will show. But, in regard to my own supposed "hos- 
tility," and " animosity," towards Mr. J. Wright Boott, I have, 
for the present, only to repeat my former statement, that, so far 



348 

as I am capable of judging myself, I was actuated by no such 
feelings, at the time, to which Mr. Lowell alludes ; and, in- 
deed, that none such had ever existed, unless during a pre- 
vious short period of well-merited indignation, before I had 
come to the settled belief of Mr. J. Wright Boott's insanity. 
But all this branch of the subject is for future consideration. 
At this moment, I desire to confine attention to the question 
of the truth and sufficiency of the account of 1844. To that 
end, I have exhibited the state of aifairs in May, 1831, and 
the transactions of that period ; I have accounted for the 
acquiescence of Mr. Kirk Boott and myself, in what could 
not be helped but by encountering worse evils ; I have shown 
that Mr. Jackson had not that knowledge of the facts, which 
could have made his opinion valuable, if he ever gave one, on 
the question of Mr. Boott's management as a trustee ; and I 
have shown that no argument, against the facts, can fairly be 
derived from their supposed inconsistency with the concur- 
rent efforts, which I admit, of Mr. Jackson, Mr. Kirk Boott, 
and Mr. Lowell, to procure, for Mr. J. Wright Boott, an im- 
portant and profitable employment. In regard to Mr. Jack- 
son's later opinions, which Mr. Lowell does not allude to, but 
which I have heard quoted, and which, if rightly quoted, 
must have produced a wide influence in this community, (I 
refer to general expressions of opinion, attributed to him, 
concerning Mr. J. Wright Boott's vindication by the account 
of 1844,) I may further say, in this connexion, that all such 
opinions, if pronounced, were merely the reflection of Mr. 
Lowell's opinions, and not founded on any personal knowl- 
edge, or examination, by Mr. Jackson himself. They prove 
nothing but Mr. Jackson's confidence in Mr. Lowell's state- 
ments, and, through them, in the sufficiency of Mr. J. Wright 
Boott's account. Opinions, so formed, however high the au- 
thority, from which they may seem to flow, add nothing to 
the weight of Mr. Lowell's opinion, whether real or pretend- 
ed. And, I repeat, no man's opinion can alter stubborn facts, 
from which I ask the intelligent reader to form his own 
opinion. 



149 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

STATE OF THE TRUST FUND AFTER THE LYMAN &> RALSTON SET- 
TLEMENT, IN SEPTEMBER, 1831. ITS REAL DEFICIENCY PARTLY 
COVERED UP, IN THE ACCOUNT OF 1844, BY A NEW VALU- 
ATION. 

Having now disposed of the occurrences in the month of 
May, 1831, I may proceed to the next event, which material- 
ly affected Mr. Boott's pecuniary position ; namely, a settle- 
ment with Messrs. Lyman &. Ralston, made by Mr. Lowell, 
for Mi\ Boott, as he tells us, [L. p. 109.] in the month of 
September, 1831. [L. p. 107.] At the time of his undertak- 
ing that business, whenever it was, he admits that he re- 
ceived, from Mr. J. Wright Boott, what he supposed to be 
" a full exposition of his affairs ;" [L. p. 78.] and the date 
of Mr. Jackson's letter of May 30, inclosed in the letter 
of Mr. Kirk Boott communicating Mr. Lowell's offer to un- 
dertake the agency, fixes, very nearly, the probable time of 
that exposition, which Mr. Lowell, as we have seen, is so 
unlucky as to fix, with great positiveness, in the month of 
August, for the purpose of proving, that, in May, he could 
not, possibly, have known any thing of Mr. Boott's affairs, 
except from my representations. [Ante, p. 301.] '' It was 
some weeks," he informs us, and he probably might have 
said months, '' before I succeeded in bringing it to a suc- 
cessful issue." [L. p. 79.] He also tells us, that all the 
original papers, relating to that settlement, are still in his 
possession. [L. p. 109.] He produces none of them ; but 
he gives his own account of the settlement as follows : — 

" The terms were briefly these. The whole property in the Mill- 
dam Foundery was to be sold to a joint stock company, to be created 
for that purpose, who were to take upon themselves the debt of 
$2500 to Colonel Thorndike ; the mortgage made the preceding year 
was to be discharged ; Messrs. Lyman & Ralston were to pay at once 



350 

$16,000 of the indorsed paper, and Mr. Boott was to continue his 
indorsement for $14,000 for the term of one year; they were to 
assign to Mr. Boott their reversionary interest in the real and per- 
sonal estate of Mr. Boott, senior, and to pay him $7,624, by their 
note, with collateral security, payable in two years, with interest ; 
they were also to give security for the outstanding indorsements. 
All these stipulations were fulfilled ; and the collateral security re- 
mained in my hands, until the indorsed notes and their note for 
$7,624 had been paid in full." [L. p. 79.] 

I shall presently give my reasons for suspecting that this 
statement, by Mr. Lowell, omits some terms in the settlement 
quite material to our controversy. At present I take it to be 
complete and accurate. 

I have, heretofore, admitted my errors in recollection of 
some of the details of these old transactions, and have shown 
that Mr. Lowell's account of the final settlement, as derived 
from the papers, differs, after all, from that previously given 
by me, from memory, in nothing material, except the pay- 
ment, by a secured note, of $7624, which was so much 
addition to Mr. Boott's present resources. [Ante, Ch. 5.] 

I have, also, heretofore remarked, on the assignment to Mr. 
Boott of the reversionary interests of Mrs. Lyman and Mrs. 
Ralston in their father's estate, that this added nothing to his 
resources for the payment of debts, or for the making good of 
the trust funds required by the will. Their reversions in two 
undivided ninth parts of the mansion-house, subject to the 
life-estate of Mrs. Boott, were property, to be sure ; but their 
full present value, in 1831, supposing the estate to have been 
then worth about ^30,000, was shown, upon the principle of 
the annuity table, to be little more than about $3300 ; [Ante, 
p. 254.] and this value, whether more or less, was never 
realized by Mr. Boott, by sale or otherwise, for the pm-pose of 
applying it to his debts, or his trust funds. As to their re- 
versions in the trust funds themselves^ these, of course, as 
was formerly remarked, added nothing to the funds, and are 
not to be esteemed property for that purpose. I now add, 
that the assignment of them to Mr. Boott could, in no event, 
be valuable to him, as property, unless the whole property of 
the estate (besides the mansion-house) left to be accounted for 



351 

by him, at the death of Mrs. Boott, should more than suffice to 
pay all he might owe, as executor, to all the other heirs. 
When they should all be paid, but not otherwise, these shares 
would become available to him, out of the surplus, if there 
were any ; and this might constitute a species of vested inter- 
est, which he could dispose of as he pleased. But, if the 
fund were defective, and all could not be paid in full, an 
assignment, to the executor, of the reversionary interest in it 
of Mrs. Lyman and Mrs. Ralston, could operate only as an 
extinguishment of all future accountability, by him to them, 
for their shares of the fund. In point of fact, the terms 
of the instrument were such as to release him, also, from 
miy present debt he might owe them, as executor, on ac- 
count of moneys of the estate, which had come to his 
hands, not belonging to the particular trust funds. [See 
Deed, B. App. p. 24.] Hence, according to my view of 
the case, the real value to Mr. Boott, of the assignment from 
those ladies and their husbands, lay in nothing but his dis- 
charge from two ninths of his whole accountability, as ex- 
ecutor and trustee, and in the transfer to him of a rever- 
sionary interest in the mansion-house^ then worth about $3300 ; 
while the chief value to him of the entire settlement with 
Lyman & Ralston, consisted in that discharge^ added to his 
exemption from liability for the debts of the foundry . 

Here, then, is another resting-place, from which we may 
look back on Mr. Boott's pecuniary position, at the time of 
the reconstruction of the trust fund, in May, 183 L The 
largest item of property, in his memorandum of 1830, the 
Mill Dam Foundry, then valued at $70,000, is now gone. 
He has, in its place, these reversions, whatever they may be 
worth, and $7624 in a note, which was eventually paid, and 
may therefore be treated as equivalent to cash. But he is, 
also, relieved from his liability for debts contracted in the 
name of Lyman & Ralston. That is to say, the $30,000 
mortgage is discharged by the holder, in consideration of a 
certain number of shares in the stock of the new corporation 
organized by Messrs. Lyman & Ralston. Of the indorsed 
paper, on which he was liable to the amount of $30,000, 



352 

$16,000 is to be paid, at once, by Lyman & Ralston, and 
$14,000 in one year; for this he has security, and since it 
was all eventually paid according to the agreement, or some 
extension of it, we may put it aside, as if paid already. So, 
his note of $2500 to Mr. Thorndike, and all the other debts 
of the foundry, contracted in the name of Lyman & Ralston, 
or otherwise, are assumed by the new corporation ; and since 
he was never called upon to pay them, they may be regarded, 
for our present purpose, as already extinguished. It will thus 
be seen, that, whether he was, at one time, liable for $80,000, 
or $30,000 only, by reason of his connexion with Lyman 6o 
Ralston, a question, which has cost so much discussion, in 
consequence of Mr. Lowell's songs of triumph, over my sup- 
posed mistakes and misrecollections, the point turns out to be 
entirely immaterial to the real issue, as will appear by the 
view I am now about to take. 

The store had, at this time, (September, 1831,) been sold 
for $16,000. A part of the proceeds had been applied, as I 
infer, to the reduction of the guardianship debt. The resi- 
due had, very probably, gone into the Mill Dam Foundry, the 
settlement with Lyman & Ralston being six or seven months 
later than the sale of the store. But, since there is no posi- 
tive evidence of that, I shall take the guardianship debt as 
it stood before the reduction, and credit, against it, the whole 
$16,000 proceeding from the store, and all that was received 
in cash, or its equivalent, from the sale of the foundry; and 
then let us see how the trust account comes out, taken on 
the day of the transfers intended to secure it, and valuing the 
properties sold, at what they produced : — 

LIABILITIES. 

Required amount of the trust funds, Sill, 111 12 

The guardianship debt, Sept. SO, 1830, as per Tyler's 

statement, from the probate accounts, [Ante, p. 235.] 46,000 00 
Debt to Mr. Lowell, 30,000 00 

Debt to Mr. Sturgis, 21,000 00 



208,111 12 



353 



Liabilities, hrought over, $208,111 12 

ASSETS. 

72 shares of Merrimack Manufacturing 

Company, at $1160, [Ante, p. 289.] $83,520 00 

39 sliares of Boston Manufacturing Com- 
pany, at $700, [Ante, p. 289.] 27,300 00 

Store, at what it sold for, in Feb. 1831, 16,000 00 

Foundry, at what it sold for, in Sept. 

1831, (exclusive of reversions,) 7,624 00 

The stable, at what it sold for, in 1844, 1,500 00 

Lilly's note, at what it eventually produc- 
ed, by the gradual collections, and the 
final sale in Oct. 1836, [Ante, p. 291.] 10,033 39 

145,977 39 

Deficiency, 62,133 73 

Or, taking Mrs. Boott's ^100,000 fund, alone, and disregard- 
ing the fund for the aunts, the deficiency was, still, more 
than ^50,000. 

There is no ground, therefore, for a pretence that the two 
ninths, in reversion, of that trust fund, assigned to Mr. Boott 
in the settlement with Lyman & Ralston, were, at the time, 
worth any thing. They, with Mr. Boott's own share in it, 
would have amounted, if Mrs. Boott had died at that time, 
nominally, to about $33,000 only ; and the deficiency in the 
fund was over 50,000. Li other words, each heir would have 
been entitled, had the life-estate expired, to a little more 
than $11,000 in present possession, that being one ninth of 
$100,000 ; Mr. Boott, representing the shares of Mrs. L3rman 
and Mrs. Ralston, together with his own original share, would 
have been entitled to one third of the fund himself, and 
would have been bound to pay over ^^11,000 to each of the 
other six heirs ; but the whole property in his possession, to 
represent that fund, after paying the debts, for which it was 
bound, would have been less than $50,000 ;* which, divided 

* Property, as aboye, $145,977 39 

Debts, as above, $46,000 

30,000 
21,000 
97,000 00 

Left for the trust fund, --.-.. 48,977 39 

45 



354 

among the six persons, would have given them only about 
$8000 each, instead of $11,000. So that he would have 
been unable to pay them in full, even supposing him to have 
owed his father's estate nothing but the amount of the trust 
fund for his mother. So long as the life-estate continued, the 
whole income, whether more or less, from $100,000, invested 
in the manufacturing stock, was due to Mrs. Boott ; and, if 
the principal of that sum was deficient by $50,000, her just 
income must, necessarily, be so much abridged, even if none 
of it were taken to pay off the principal of Mr. Boott 's private 
debts. There is no pretence of any other assets of Mr, Boott, 
capable of being applied to this deficiency, except the theij 
value of three ninths of the mansion-house, which, subject to 
the life-estate, must be set down at less than $5000. This 
was never in fact so applied, and, if it had been, would have 
still left the fund deficient, by more than ^45,000. 

To simplify the view still further, all the property, except 
that, which reappears under a new valuation in the account 
of 1844, may be taken in offset to the guardianship debt. 
Thus :— 

The debt to the wards, before the partial 

payment from the proceeds of the store, was $46,000 00 

Against it put, proceeds of store, $16,000 00 

Cash proceeds of foundry, 7,624 00 

Proceeds of Lilly's note 10,033 39 

One share of Merrimack Manufacturing 

Company,* 1,160 00 

34,817 39 



Balance of this debt, to be provided for, 11,182 61 

The rest of the property, which was kept till 1844, was, 
at its value in 1831, as follows : — 

71 shares of Merrimack Manufacturing Company, 

at !$ 11 60, $82,360 00 

39 shares of Boston Manufacturing Company, at $700, 27,300 00 

Stable, at its price of sale in 1844, " 1,500 00 



* Seventy-one, out of the seventy-two, remained to the period of the account in 
1844 ; — one had been parted with. 



355 

Brought over, $111,160 00 

Deduct the balance of the guardianship debt, as above, 11,182 61 

99,977 39 
Deduct the debts of Messrs. Sturgis and Lowell, for 

which the shares then stood pledged, 51,000 00 

Net value of the fund, in May, 1831, 48,977 39 

Deficiency, 51,022 61 

Nominal fund, 100,000 00 

By comparing this with the account of 1844, it is now easy 
to see how the means were provided for paying oflf the alleged 
cash balance of $25,000 in Mr. Boott's favour, and yet leav- 
ing something near $100,000, apparently, for the trust. In 
the first place, the debt to Mr. Sturgis had then (in 1844,) 
been paid off, and also $5000 of Mr. Lowell's debt, in all 
$26,000 ; which, with many years of interest, could have 
been paid, as I shall show, out of nothing but the income of 
the trust fund, provided the guardianship debt is assumed to 
have been paid out of the other funds above assigned to it. 
If not, so much of those other funds as went to pay, in part, 
the $26,000 to Messrs. Lowell and Stm-gis, was replaced by 
an equal amount of the income of the trust property applied 
to the guardianship debt. It is mere substitution, in the ap- 
plication of the income, to one debt or another, and makes 
no difference in the result. This subject, — the application of 
income, — I shall return to. At present I only mark the fact, 
that the incumbrance on the trust property, in May, 1831, 
had been reduced, in 1844, by some means, from about 
62,000* to $25,000, the then balance of Mr. Lowell's debt. 
Thereby, the deficiency in the principal of the trust fund, 



* Debt to Mr. Sturgis, $21,000, to Mr. Lowell, $30,000, - $51,000 
Balance of the guardianship debt, after applying all other means, 11,000 

62,000 



356 

upon the valuation of 1831, was reduced from $51,000 to 
about $14,000.* 

In the next place, the account, instead of exhibiting that 
amount of deficiency, exhibits, when strictly analyzed, a de- 
ficiency of less than $4000, with an alleged '' cash balance, 
due to the executor," sufficient to cover Mr. Lowell's debt. 
How is this seemingly favourable change produced ? Simply 
hy charging the property at a different valuation, founded 
upon its alleged cost to Mr. Boott, thus : — 

The 71 shares of the Merrimack Manufac- 
turing Company, instead of being put at 
their value when first put in trust, vizr 
SI 160 per share, are, with great apparent 
liberality, put at only the par of $1000 
per share, S7 1,000 

This takes off $11,360 of the value, at which 
I place them to the trust account. But the 
39 shares of Boston Manufacturing Com- 
pany, instead of being put at $700 a 
share, (which is what I rate them at, and 
all they were worth when first put in 
trust,) are charged, 18 of them, at $1150 
each, and 21 of them at $1300 each, mak- 
ing in all, for that item, instead of $27,300, 
no less than 48,000 

Being an addition of $20,700. And the 
stable, instead of $1500, which was more 
than it was worth in 1831, is charged at 2,500 



$121,500 00 



Deduct the alleged cash balance, resulting from the 
admitted receipts, and alleged payments of the ac- 
count, — being just the amount of Mr. Lowell's debt 
and a fraction over, 25,215 45 



and it leaves, at that valuation, to represent the trust 

fund, 96,284 55 



* Paid off, Sturgis, $21,000 

" Lowell, on account, 5,000 

Balance of guardianship debt, as above, also paid off, - - 11,000 

Total, - . . 37,000 



Deficiency of the trust fund, in 1831, .... 51,000 

Incumbrances paid off, as above, - .... 37,000 

Deficiency (on the same valuation,) in 1844, - - 14,000 



857 

Brought over, S9 6,284 55 
In other words, the account, in providing for a cash 
balance sufficient to cover Mr. Lowell's debt, ex- 
hibits a deficiency, after all, in the trust fund, of 3,715 45 

Nominal trust fund, 100,000 00 



In short, the property placed in trust in May, 1831, is 

charged in 1844, at $121,500 00 

The same property, (clear of debts,) when put in trust, 
in 1831, has been shown [Ante, p. 354] to have 
been worth only 111,000 00 



Difference, 10,500 00 

The deficiency in Mrs. Boott's trust fund, according 

to the account of 1844, is, still, over 3,700 00 



14,200 00 



So that the greater part of Mr. Lowell's debt appears, at 
last, to have been provided for out of these two sources : — 
That is, by taking §3700 from the fund, which the " Re- 
ply" admits Mr. Boott was bound to have had on hand, and 
to have paid over in full to his successor in the trust ; and by 
charging the property, standing in the executor's name, at 
$10,500 more than it was worth when it became the prop- 
erty of the trust. If, on the other hand, he had charged it 
at its value in May, 1831, (the alleged receipts and payments 
in the account being as they now are,) the taking out of the 
alleged cash balance, for the payment of the debt to Mr. 
Lowell, would have left the capital of the trust fund deficient, 
in 1844, by more than $14,000,* even if no part of its income 
had been previously applied to the payment or reduction of 
Mr. Boott's other debts, which is a separate question. The 
propriety of this valuation of the property, under the circum- 
stances, I shall presently consider. Just now, I only point 
out the fact, that it was essential to the means of providing 
for payment in full to Mr. Lowell, without a more glaring 
subtraction from Mrs. Boott's trust fund, than can now be 
detected from the figures on the face of the account. 

* Value in 1831, as shown, [Ante, p. 354.] - - - $111,000 
Balance of the account of 1844, 25,000 



Left for the trast fund, - - . - . . 86,000 



358 



*•• 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

ANOTHER CHARGE AGAINST ME OF MISREPRESENTATION TURNED 
UPON MR. LOWELL. A QUERY RESPECTING HIS ALLEGED LIEN 
ON THE STOCKS IN 1844. 

I will now ask the reader's attention to another grave 
charge brought against me in the " Reply," — a charge of a 
misrepresentation, either by design, or by criminal negligence 
and false assumptions, injurious to Mr. Boott, respecting pay- 
ments on account of his debt to Mr. Lowell. I wish the 
reader to see who makes the substantial misrepresentation 
here. 

In the foregoing chapter, for the sake of presenting, more 
clearly, the actual condition of Mrs. Boott's trust fund, in 
October, 1831, I assumed the application of all the cash 
received by Mr. Boott, (whether before or after that date,) 
from the sale of the store, and of Lilly's note, and of his 
interest in the foundry, to the reduction of his guardianship 
debt as it had stood in 1830. I do not mean to be under- 
stood that those moneys were all, in fact, so applied; I be- 
lieve otherwise; and the reader shall see such evidence as 
I have, tending to show the time and manner, in which, and 
to determine out of what fund, Mr. Boott's debts, remaining 
after the settlement with Lyman & Ralston, were severally 
discharged. 

In respect to the debts due to Messrs. Sturgis and Lowell 
in May, 1831, (when the property was put in trust,) the time 
and manner of the only payment for the reduction of either 
of them made by Mr. Boott, so far as I am informed, out 
of any means not proceeding from the property itself, so 
placed in trust, appears by the following letter from Mr. 
Boott to me. If I am not right in this, let Mr. Lowell 
show whence any other payments did come. 



359 



LETTER FROM J. W. BOOTT to E. BROOKS. 

Dear Sir: 

As you consented, yesterday, to apply the dividends and interest on 
the stocks and note in your hands, towards the payment of my note 
to Mr. Lowell, I have this day anticipated the receipt from you of 
them, and have paid to Mr. Lowell S5,U00. Therefore, at your con- 
venience, I request you will be good enough to send me a check for 
such sums as you have received, and to hand over to me the interest 
on Mr. Lilly's note, when it shall be paid. 

Yours truly, 

Jno. W. Boott. 
Ed. Brooks, Esq. 
Nov. 22, 183L 

In my former pamphlet, I was unable to point out the 
source from which this $5000 was probably derived. [B. p. 
47.] I now infer, from the proximity of time, and the want 
of other cash means, that it was part of the $7624 received, 
according to Mr. Lowell, out of the settlement effected with 
Lyman & Ralston about two months before. The note, 
taken for that sum, must have passed into Mr. Lowell's 
hands, as the agent of Mr. Boott in that transaction, and, 
probably some assignment was made, by which $5000 of it 
was applied to the reduction of the debt due to Mr. Lowell ; 
which may well have happened unknown to me. 

From the foregoing letter of Mr. Boott, it farther appears, 
that I had consented, at his request, to apply the dividends 
and interest, accruing on the stocks and on Lilly's note, held 
by me in trust under the agreement of May 23, 1831, to- 
wards the payment of his ^^ note to Mr. Lowell." And as 
Mr. Boott, it seems, had himself paid $5000, on the 22d of 
November, 1831, in anticipation of those receipts, I paid to 
him, towards his reimbursement, as he requests, on the fol- 
lowing day, the amount of cash then in my hands, being 
$1440, as appears by his receipt. [B. App. p. 26.] By a 
subsequent agreement, all my further collections from that 
trust property, while it remained in my hands, amounting to 
more than $10,000, were handed to Mr. Boott, from time 
to time, to be applied by him towards further payment of his 
''note to Mr. Lowell," except ^2000 of it, which I handed 



360 

to Mr. Lowell, for that purpose, myself. These payments 
were made under the idea that the property in my hands 
was ample to secure the guardianship debt, and that the re- 
duction of the debt due to Mr. Lowell, for which stocks 
belonging to the estate were pledged, out of any surplus in 
my hands, was entirely consistent with the objects of my 
trust. The receipts of Mr. Boott, which 1 formerly printed, 
[B. App. pp. 26 — 8,] generally express his agreement to make 
this special application of the money ; and the fact, formerly 
stated, [B. p. 48.] of the payment of the $2000 by me to Mr. 
Lowell, is not disputed by him. 

The effect of all these payments, by Mr. Boott and my- 
self, should have been, as I formerly remarked, [B. p. 48,] to 
have reduced his debt to Mr. Lowell, " unless new loans were 
made,'^ from $30,000 to $15,000 at most; for the dividends, 
on the stocks, which Mr. Lowell held as security, must have 
more than kept down interest. I then remarked as fol- 
lows : — - 

" Yet it is certain, that at the time of the settlement of accounts in 
December, 1844, which will presently be spoken of, the balance of 
principal claimed by Mr. Lowell as still due, remained at S25,000, 
precisely as it was after the payment [by Mr. Boott] of the $5000, in 
November, 1831. That is to say, presuming that to have been the 
true balance of debt, Mr. Wright Boott had not so managed his 
affairs, during those thirteen years, as to have been able to reduce 
the debt one dollar, notwithstanding that he had received from me, 
within the first three years of the series, by payment either to himself 
or to Mr. Lowell, upwards of $10,000 for that specific object ; and 
notwithstanding that the aggregate income, from all his manufacturing 
stocks, had averaged, during the entire period, between $12,000 and 
$13,000 a year, and was in one year little short of $30,000. How 
this should have happened, Mr. Lowell, perhaps, can explain. For 
myself, I know nothing of the arrangements between him and Mr. 
Wright Boott." [B. p. 48.] 

Mr. Lowell's remark on this is :— 



" How cruel this imputation appears, when the truth comes to be 
told, that Mr. Boott reduced his debt to me twenty-six thousand 
DOLLARS during those very thirteen years!" [L. p. 97.] 

The capitals are Mr. Lowell's, — that being a form of type, 



361 

to which he has no objection, it would seem, though Ital- 
ics he considers rather unfair. [L. p. 83.] 

As the steps, by which Mr. Lowell arrives at this com- 
ment, and a further one, which I shall presently quote, afford 
a remarkable specimen of his keen perception of truth, and 
high estimate of its value, in an argument, I must ask the 
reader to consider them well. 

In the first place, he must be informed that, just before 
the remark, which calls forth Mr. Lowell's animadversion, I 
had stated, that, not long after April, 1833, (a point of time 
not yet arrived at, but which I now anticipate for this pur- 
pose,) there was a general improvement in affairs ; that the 
business of the Mill Dam Foundry, '• so far as Mr. Wright 
Boott's concern in it extended," had been wound up ; that 
property, generally, had been restored to its usual value ; 
that the manufacturing companies made good dividends; 
that the store, in State-street, had been sold for $1000 more 
than it had been estimated at, in Mr. Boott's memorandum 
of 1830 ; to which I added as follows : — 

" The proceeds, ($16,000,) and receipts from dividends on the man- 
ufacturing stock, had enabled him to pay off his debt of $21,000 to 
Mr. Sturgis, and to relieve the forty-two shares of the Merrimack 
stock, which had been pledged in that quarter. But, in the mean 
time, he had been obliged to rely on Mr. Lowell, I presume, for some 
further aid ; for, in the course of these transactions, twenty-one of 
those shares appear to have been transferred to Mr. Lowell, who al- 
ready held ample security for his former loan of $30,000." [B. 
p. 46.] 

Immediately following this, I narrated the payment, above- 
mentioned, of $5000, by Mr. Boott to Mr. Lowell, in Novem- 
ber, 1831, and the subsequent payments, which were, or 
should have been, made out of funds coming from me ; and 
I concluded my remarks on this subject with the passage, 
(above extracted,) which leads Mr. Lowell to sport with cap- 
itals, in the manner before shown. 

Now I was mistaken, as I have since found, in supposing 
that the proceeds of the store were specifically applied to the 
payment of the Sturgis loan. But it was of no manner of 
consequence, to the view I was then taking, whether that 



362 



particular debt was paid, in part, by that particular piece of 
property, or from the proceeds of any other property includ- 
ed in the memorandum of 1830. I gave credit for the store 
as applied to the payment of debt ; I mentioned the fact that 
the Sturgis debt was paid ; and I pointed to the fact that the 
transfer, by Mr. Sturgis, of one half of the shares he held, 
to Mr. Lowell, indicated some new advance by Mr. Lowell to 
Mr. Boott, requiring that additional security ; and I then pro- 
ceeded to show, that, unless that were the case, Mr. Lowell's 
debt ought to have been reduced, by particular sums of 
money agreed to be so appropriated, to $15,000, instead of 
standing, as it did in 1844, at $25,000. The point of the 
whole course of remark was, to show a degree of misman- 
agement in this, — that, notAvithstanding the large income 
from the stocks, and the $10,000 furnished, through me, ex- 
pressly for the further payment of the $25,000 remaining due 
on Mr. Lowell's $30,000 note, that debt did not appear ta 
have been reduced at all in thirteen years, although Mr. Stur- 
gis's debt of $21,000 was, as I stated, at some time, and by 
some means, wholly paid off. 

Mr. Lowell, finding in this statement an immaterial mis- 
take, (as to the source whence I supposed the money to have 
come, which went to Mr. Sturgis,) seizes upon that, and ex- 
hibits it to his reader, as if it were a fact vastly material, and 
leading to an important consequence, most injurious to Mr. 
Boott. I give his own language : — 

" Mr. Brooks here undertakes to state, as from his own knowledge, 
not only that Mr. Boott paid the debt to Mr. Sturgis, but also from 
what sources he derived the money for such payment. 

" It is a very important question, what degree of reliance is to be 
placed upon a statement so deliberately made and so circumstantial in 
its details. The question is easily resolved. 

" Mr. Boott did not pay the debt to Mr. Sturgis at the time and 
from the sources specified. I paid the $21,000 to Mr. Sturgis, and 
took the debt to my account, as trustee, at the request of Mr. Boott, 
who preferred to be indebted to me alone. The effect of the transac- 
tion was to relieve one half of the stock which had been pledged to 
Mr. Sturgis; as the shares which I already held, with the twenty-one 
shares transferred to me by him, amply secured me for the whole of 
my advances." [L. p. 95, 96.] 



363 

Now this fact of Mr. Lowell's having advanced the $21,000 
to Mr. Sturgis, and having taken that debt, also, to his own 
account, by purchase and assignment, is one, which had never 
been communicated to me, by either Mr. Lowell or Mr. Boott, 
(although my position was such, in relation to the whole 
business, that it manifestly should have been,) and I had un- 
derstood, generally, from Mr. Lowell, that the debt to Mr. 
Sturgis had been paid. But, though ignorant of the manner 
of its payment, I was not guilty of any negligence on the 
subject, when preparing my former statement. 

I had obtained, in the first place, from the treasurer of the 
Merrimack Manufacturing Company, the account, as it stands 
in the books of that company, of all shares transferred to and 
by Mr. Boott, as executor. Thence it appeared, that Mr. 
Gushing, for whom, and in whose name, Mr. Sturgis acted, 
had transferred, as I already knew, in May, 1831, to Mr. 
Boott, as executor, the forty-two shares, which, in January, 

1830, Mr. Boott, then holding them in his own private name, 
had pledged to him on his individual account ; and I knew, 
also, that the same shares were immediately retransferred, 
by Mr. Boott, as executor, in pledge for the same debt. But 
this retransfer did not appear to have been put on record till 
November 24, 1831 ; and on the same day, the record showed 
a final surrender, to Mr. Boott, as executor, from Mr. Gushing, 
of twenty-one^ only, of these shares. [See Record of transfers, 
B. App- p. 31.] What became of the other twenty-one, did 
not appear by the transcript from the record, with which I 
had been furnished. 

Hence, being in doubt, whether there might not have been 
a partial payment of the debt to Mr. Gushing, in November, 

1831, and a renewal of the residue for some further time, and 
being in doubt, also, of what finally became of the twenty- 
one missing shares, I next applied to my friend Mr. Sturgis 
for information ; and learnt from him, after he had consulted 
his books, (from which he furnished me with a memorandum,) 
that the note wsls paid in full in November, 1831, and that 
all the collateral security was then given up. His books, of 
course, contained no entry of the manner, in which the pay-^ 



364 

ment was made, whether by Mr. Boott in persoii; or by Mr. 
Lowell for Mr. Boott, or otherwise; nor of the particular 
transfers of the collateral security, which were made, of 
course, according to Mr. Boott's orders at the time. The 
transaction was, so far as he knew or remembered, a simple 
payment of the debt, and surrender of the collateral. 

I afterwards found, at the office of the Merrimack Company, 
that the twenty-one shares, unaccounted for, had been trans- 
ferred to Mr. Lotoell ; and thence, I inferred, correctly, as it 
now appears, that Mr. Lowell must have made some new ad- 
vance for Mr. Boott ; but I also inferred, incorrectly, as now 
appears, that Mr. Sturgis must have been paid, partly, from 
the proceeds of the store, sold a few months before. Mr. 
Lowell was the only other person in the world, who knew 
the facts ; and he was the last person in the world for me to 
seek correct information from, on any point affecting this 
case. 

The '•^ Reply," however, proceeds to remark, '• that these 
things are stated as facts, and within the writer's knowledge ; 
and that one of the points stated is, that Mr. Boott derived 
from the dividends on the manufacturing stocky in part, the 
means of paying his debt to Mr, Sturgis.^^ [L. p. 96.] 

That statement I shall show, notwithstanding Mr. LowelFs 
denial, by implication, to be perfectly true in substantial 
effect, if not to the letter ; and true even to a greater extent 
than I had stated it. It is true to the letter, with this 
exception, only, viz. that Mr. Boott paid the dividends to 
Mr. Lowell, standing in BIr. Sturgis^s shoes, as his assignee 
of the debt, instead of paying them directly to Mr. Sturgis ; — 
a distinction without a difference, except in name. Perhaps, 
as we are bound to sail by the card in this matter, I ought 
not to say, now, that Mr. Boott paid the dividends to Mr. 
Lowell ; but, to avoid another philippic, against such heinous 
inaccuracies, and to meet Mr. Lowell's high notions of exact- 
ness in the statement of literal truth, I ought rather to say, 
that Mr. Lowell, holding the shares in pledge, took the divi- 
dends, and paid himself At any rate, for the fact that the 
dividends were the means of paying Mr. Lowell, besides 



365 

other reasons, which will presently demonstrate it, I may- 
cite the authority of Mr. Lowell himself, — who contends, 
(and the truth of that we shall see in due time,) that one 
sixth part of the income from all the manufacturing stocks, 
which appear in the probate account, belonged to Mr. Boott ; 
and that he had a right to appropriate $2000 a year from it 
to his own use ; to which the ^' Reply" adds, — '' It was for 
this very purpose, that the debt to me [Lowell] was permitted 
to continue, instead of being paid off by a sale of a portion 
of the stock in 183L" [L. p. 92.] Yet, while making this 
admission, he tells his reader, almost in the same breath, that 
my allegation, that these dividends formed part of the means 
of paying the Sturgis debt, (which had become a part of the 
debt to Mr. Lowell,) was an error, no less than my allega- 
tion that the proceeds of the store were applied to that debt ; 
and he declares that ^^ such an error as the above, however 
innocent in its inception, is very apt to lead to the most 
unjust conclusions ;^'' and that " this is eminently the case in 
the present instance.^^ [L. p. 96.] In proof of which, he 
refers to my above cited statement, concerning the $10,000 
paid by me to Mr. Boott, for the reduction of his debt, to 
Mr. Lowell, and proceeds as follows : — 

" Laboring, however, under the preconceived opinion that the Stur- 
gis debt had h^en paid^ and that my debt was only $30,000, and find- 
ing my debt to be still S25,000, he [Brooks] draws the inference, or 
endeavours to make his readers draw it, that Mr. Boott had deceived 
him in this matter, and had not applied the money as he agreed to do." 
[L. p. 96.] 

Now I appeal to every candid reader of my former remarks 
that I neither drew, nor desired others to draw, the inference, 
that there was any intention of deception in the case. On 
the contrary, I expressly excluded it, [B. p. 47.] and only 
stated the necessary alternative, resulting from the state of 
the debt, that either Mr. Boott could not have paid the money 
to Mr. Lowell, or that the effect of the payments had been 
counteracted hy new loans, not communicated to me, — cleav- 
ing it to Mr. Lowell to explain how the fact was, and sug-. 
gesting, meanwhile, my own inference, from the transfer of 



366 

twenty-one shares by Mr. Sturgis to Mr. Lowell, that new 
advances must have been made. 
Mr. Lowell next says : — 

" Had Mr. Brooks known or remembered (as the case may be,) 
that Mr. Boott's debt to me, after January, 1834, was $46,000, and 
not S25,000, as he alleges, he would have spared me the pain of re- 
futing the following imputation on the memory of Mr. Boott." [L. p. 
97.] 

He then cites, from my pamphlet, a portion of the passage, 
which I have cited above, as containing the imputation. 

Having, thus, led his readers to believe that I had charged 
Mr. Boott with a wilful deception, which I never did, and 
having artfully connected that assumed charge with my mis- 
take in supposing that the proceeds of the store had gone 
towards the payment of the Sturgis debt, and having magni- 
fied that mistake, which was wholly immaterial to the point 
I was aiming at, into a matter of grave importance, and having 
suggested, as part of the same mistake, that, which was no 
mistake at all, concerning the application of dividends, he 
remarks, in the language before cited, duly emphasized with 
capitals, and a note of admiration, upon the cruelty of my 
imputation, '' when the truth comes to be told," which is, 
(according to the "Reply,") that Mr. Boott had reduced the 
debt due to him, Mr. Lowell, $26,000 during the thirteen 
years spoken of. Having announced this remarkable truth 
as something entirely repugnant to my statements, he winds 
up as follows ; — 

" On such unsubstantial speculations is this whole matter of impeach- 
ment based ; carefully investigated they all vanish, 

' And like the baseless fabric pf a vision, 
Leave not a rack behind.' " [L. p. 97.] 

Thus the matter is left, in the '' Reply," as if there had 
been some great misrepresentation, of cruel import, all grow- 
ing out of my "unsubstantial speculation" as to the source, 
from which the money came, that paid Mr. Sturgis. Every one 
of Mr. Lowell's readers probably believed, on reading those 
pages, that I had onisrepresented, either purposely, or by 



367 

a careless mistake, the amount of Mr. BootVs payme7its^ 
to the extent of more than $20,000 ! Whereas I neither mis- 
took, nor misrepresented, the amount, by a single dollar. 

Poetry and fiction are apt to go hand in hand ; and so they 
may be found, occasionally, paired, in Mr. Lowell's pages. 
The matter, which I pointed out as one evidence of misman- 
agement, was, that, of the $51,000 of debts, for which the 
shares were pledged by the executor in May, 1831, $26,000, 
only, had been paid off, prior to the account of 1844 ; namely, 
the whole $21,000 due to Mr. Sturgis, and $5000 only of 
the debt to Mr. Lowell, and that the balance of the debt to 
Mr. Lowell, was, at the date of that account, left still unpaid ; 
notwithstanding that, during those thirteen years, there had 
been an average income, from the property held by or under 
Mr. Boott, of between $12,000 and $13,000 a year ; and not- 
withstanding a payment, through me, to Mr. Boott, within 
the first three years of that series, of over $10,000, expressly 
to be applied to the " note to Mr. Lowell." Now Mr. Lowell 
confirms this statement of facts in every material particular ; 
and yet he says the truth is, that Mr. Boott, in that time, 
'^ reduced his debt to me [Mr. Lowell] $26,000." 

But what is, here, meant by "his debt to me ?" The debt, 
/ was speaking of, as not paid or reduced beyond $5000, was 
the oi^iginal ^30,000 note, for which the pledge by Mr. Boott, 
as executor^ was made to Mr. Lowell^ under the agreement 
with me of May, 1831. But, says Mr. Lowell, in effect, 
'' About the time of the payment of the $5000, which re- 
duced the principal of that note to $25,000, I purchased, by a 
new advance, unknown to you, Mr. Boott's debt to Mr. Stur- 
gis, and thereby the whole debt due to me, notwithstanding 
the ^5000 payment, became $46,000 ; and it so stood till 
after January, 1834." Indeed ! How does that alter the 
case ?—'* Why," says Mr. Lowell, "it shows, contrary to 
your false and cruel imputation, that Mr. Boott, during those 
thirteen years, had paid on account of my debt, in the whole, 
$26,000, instead of only $5000, as you pretend."— "But," 1, 
ask, "did I not say, that he had paid the Sturgis debt of 
$21,000 in full, as well as $5000 of the original debt to 



368 

you ? Is not that the loliole $26,000 you speak of 7^^ — '' Yes, 
but you did not say that he had paid that $26,000 to me; — 
and this was a false and cruel imputation !" 

Now what is all this but a small prevarication, designed 
to mislead easy readers, and to make a false show of mis- 
representation and injustice on my part ? Neither Mr. Low- 
ell, nor Mr. Boott, having ever told me of Mr. Lowell's be- 
ing the owner of a new debt, I paid money to Mr. Boott, 
from time to time, and took his receipts, on the faith that 
they should be applied to the reduction,— =not of ani/ debt 
he might owe to Mr. Lowell, but — of the debt, for which 
certain shares, belonging to his father's estate, had been 
pledged to Mr. Lowell, under an agreement with me. This 
does not rest on my memory alone. Mr, Boott's written 
receipts prove it ; for, although they do, in two instances, 
speak, generally, of '' my debt to John A. Lowell," in eight 
instances they describe it, definitely, as " my note to John 
A. Lowell," (meaning the $30,000 note, which was the 
only note, and the only debt, to him, that I knew of,) and 
in one instance, when a small sum in my hands appears 
to have been needed to keep down interest, the distinction 
is taken, between the note to Mr. Lowell and the note to 
Mr. Cushing, the receipt being, expressly, "towards pay- 
ing the interest, on my notes to J. P. Cushing and J. A. Low- 
ell," — as if they were still distinct debts, and held by dis- 
tinct parties ; although it now appears, by the " Reply," that 
both were, in fact, held by Mr. Lowell, unknown to me. 
[See the Receipts, B. App. 26-8.] 

If I had been misled, then, into an erroneous statement 
on this point, whose would be the fault ? But the substance 
of my statement was absolutely correct ; the moneys did 
7iot reduce that debt, which I was given to understand they 
should reduce, and of which I was speaking, namely, the 
^^ note to John A. Lowell." They did not reduce that debt, 
not because Mr. Boott was guilty of any dereliction of duty 
in omitting to pay over the moneys to Mr. Lowell, but be- 
cause Mr. Lowell chose to apply them to a different debt, 
namely, the "note to J. P. Cushing," then held by Mr. 



369 

Lowell, as assignee, without my knowledge. He chose to 
apply them to a neio loan, which he had made to Mr. Boott, 
instead of the old loan, which I meant should be paid off; 
and although I suggested that new loans must have been 
made, to account for the non-reduction of the old one, Mr. 
Lowell, availing himself of his own misapplication of the 
money, and concealment of the fact, now turns round upon 
me, and declares, that, "when the truth comes to be told," 
it differs from my statement by $21,000 ; and, although the 
f 21,000, which he refers to, is exactly the same $21,000, 
which I had said was paid by Mr. Boott to Mr. Sturgis 
himself, as I supposed, instead of his unkiiown assignee, Mr. 
Lowell, that gentleman does not hesitate to charge me, on 
this state of facts, with a false imputation, entirely of his 
own making. 

Thus much for scrupulous adhesion to the absolute truth ! 

I would add, that all the payments made, out of the trust 
moneys in my hands, either to Mr. Boott, or to Mr. Lowell, 
for the reduction of the debt to the latter, were founded 
upon the supposition, (Mr. Boott's, as well as mine,) that he 
owed only $20,000 to his wards. Had I known that the 
debt to them, in 1830, was, as now appears, $46,000, 1 should 
never have consented to the diversion of a dollar for the 
payment of Mr. Lowell ; since all the property put into my 
hands was upon the trust, first to secure the guardianship 
debt, and, secondly, to deliver the property to the order of 
the executor, as such, for the security of his father's estate. 
[See Dec. of Trust, B. App. p. 23.] The payments made to 
Mr. LoAvell, since they were intended to relieve the estate's 
shares from the incumbrance of the debt due to him, were 
consistent with the second object of my trust, and still left 
an ample fund to meet a debt, on the guardianship accounts, 
of $20,000, which was understood to satisfy the first object 
of my trust ; but the whole trust property in my hands was 
insufficient to pay a debt of $46,000. 

It may be worth while to inquire, in this connexion, how 
Mr. Lowell's lien stood in 1844, since its existence, at the 
time of the final transfer, in that year, of the seventy-one 

47 



370 

shares by Mr. Lowell to Mr. Boott, as executor, is said to 
have made that transfer, in effect, a conveyance to the es- 
tate, of precisely $25,000 more of property than it was en- 
titled to receive ; and so (according to the argument,) justi- 
fied Mr. Boott in claiming thus much of the property as 
his own, in consequence, and by the operation, of my agree- 
ment with Mr. Lowell, in May, 1831. 

Now Mr. Lowell's lien, under that agreement, related only 
to the fifty shares then pledged to him by Mr. Boott, as ex- 
ecutor, for $30,000 ; and Mr. Boott was permitted to create 
such a lien, as executor, only because Mr. Lowell had made 
the loan, four years before, on a pledge of those same shares 
as Mr. Boott's private property, and, as I supposed in 1831, 
without cause of suspicion that they justly belonged to the 
estate of Mr. Boott, senior. 

Had it been siapposed, in 1831, that Mr. Lowell, when he 
made the loan, in 1827, knew, or had probable cause to be- 
lieve, that the shares were not Mr. J. Wright Boott's own 
private property, his lien would have been esteemed of no 
validity, and he would have been compelled to surrender the 
shares to the estate. On the same principle, the true state 
of the case having been disclosed to Mr. Lowell, in May, 
1831, no new loan could, afterwards, be tacked on to that 
debt, so as to bind the estate by a further incumbrance of 
the estate's shares, without the consent of all parties inter- 
ested. 

It now appears, however, that Mr. Lowell did, afterwards, 
make a new advance, for Mr. Boott, of $21,000, and that he 
received a further pledge of twenty-one other shares, by a 
transfer at that time from Mr. Sturgis, on Mr. Boott's order; 
that his claim, from the beginning, on Mr. Boott was thereby 
raised to $51,000; that prior to 1844, $26,000, in the whole, 
had been paid to him, and that he then claimed to hold the 
whole seventy-one shares, which were in his hands, as secur- 
ity for the balance of his debt, being $25,000 ; and he now 
claims to have had, in 1844, in consequence of his agreement 
with me, in 1831, a lien to that extent, on these shares, when 



371 

he transferred them to the estate, at the time of the present- 
ation of the probate account. 

Let us look into this. Had he any such lien, as against 
the estate, on the twenty-one shares transferred to him by 
Mr. Sturgis? Mr. Sturgis had such a lien upon them, at 
least as against me, because it was agreed by me, acting for 
all concerned, that he should have, — he consenting, and 
Mr. Boott consenting, that the shares should be, neverthe- 
less, marked as property of the estate. Could Mr. Lowell, 
knowing this, (for he helped to make the arrangement with 
Mr. Sturgis,) afterwards take those shares from Mr. Sturgis, 
divested of that mark, without the consent of any party in* 
terested, except Mr. Boott, and then claim a lien upon them, 
against the estate^ in consequence of his own voluntary ad- 
vance for Mr. Boott ? Would he not have been compellable, 
by a new administrator, to relinquish the shares, and to look 
to Mr. Boott for his money, when he knew, at the time he 
made that advance, that it was to meet a private debt of Mr. 
Boott to Mr. Sturgis, and that the shares pledged for it were 
the property of the estate ? 

Certainly he could not claim, on account of this $21,000 
so advanced, a lien upon the fifty shares, which he pre- 
viously held ; for, in respect to them, this was an entire neiv 
loan, made with full knowledge that the shares were not Mr. 
Boott's property, and so made without the consent, or knowl- 
edge, of the heirs. Neither could he rightfully apply, to 
the repayment of that $21,000, moneys, which, by contract 
between Mr. Boott and me, were specifically appropriated 
towards the payment of the $30,000 note. This appropria- 
tion Mr. Lowell could not have been ignorant of, since he 
knew that he had never disclosed to me the fact that he was 
the holder of any other claim against Mr. Boott. it is pos- 
sible that the estate may have been no loser, by these 
transactions ; but, whether it was or not. if we com.e to the 
strict right of lien, as against the estate, (on which Mr. Low- 
ell professes to stand,) it would seem that he was bound to 
apply the moneys, strictly, according to the specific appro- 



372 

priation, and that his lien must have been thereby reduced, 
to $15,000, at most, instead of $25,000, as he claims. 

If there were, besides the advance of this $21,000 to Mr. 
Sturgis, other accommodations from Mr. Lowell to Mr. Boott, 
during the thirteen years, as I believe would appear by his 
accounts, it may be questionable whether the effect of all 
the current transactions between those parties, unknown to 
any body but themselves, was not to discharge the whole 
asserted lien as against the estate. Such would seem to be 
the just and legal effect, if moneys were applied to the repay- 
ment of these new loans, which might, otherwise, have gone 
to the extinction of the particular debt, for which the fifty 
shares of the estate's property were specifically pledged to 
Mr. Lowell, under the agreement of 1831. 

Whether these secret transactions, between Mr. Boott and 
Mr. Lowell, were beneficial, or injurious, to the interests of 
the heirs, can not be judged of, until we are made fully ac- 
quainted with them ; but, at any rate, it would seem that 
parties interested in the property had a right to judge of that 
for themselves, and a right to be informed, in order that they 
might judge, instead of being told, as they are, in effect, by 
Mr. Lowell,—" Here is the account ; you see it makes a bal- 
ance of $25,000, in favour of Mr. Boott ; I had a lien on the 
shares for that amount, by your agreement ,• and, since I 
transfer them all to the estate, Mr. Boott has a right to pay 
me my debt out of other property of the estate ;* and it is 
none of your business to know what further loans 1 may 
have made to Mr. Boott on the strength of these shares, or 
what moneys 1 received from time to time, or how I chose 
to apply them." 

It was, doubtless, convenient to Mr. Lowell to apply the 
moneys, first, to those advances, for which he had the least, 
or the most doubtful, security ; but whether he had a right 
to look to the estate, or was bound to look only to Mr. 
Boott, for the payment of his final balance, to the extent 
claimed, or any part of it, may depend upon transactions, 

*It was in fact paid, it will be remembered, out of the proceeds of the mansion- 
house. 



STS 



which he has not yet fully disclosed ; and which, so far as 
disclosed, indicate that he had no right to look to the estate's 
property for more than $15,000, at most ; since his original 
$30,000 debt would have been reduced to that sum, had he 
applied the moneys, which came from me, according to their 
specific appropriation. 

Had the whole $26,000, of which he admits the receipt, 
been applied to the original debt, it would have been reduced 
to $4000 ; and that would have been the utmost extent of his 
lien, by virtue of the agreement with me, on any property of 
the estate. For the additional $21,000, which was due to 
him in 1844, to what could he have looked, except to the 
personal responsibility of Mr. Boott ? 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

PRETENDED IMPREGNABILITY OF MR. BOOTt's POSITION UNDER 
THE RELEASE OF 1833. 

I now return to the narative. The next event, which 
materially affected Mr. Boott's position, was the release of 
April 14, 1833, signed by all the heirs except Dr. Boott, who 
was in London, and Messrs. Lyman and Ralston, who, in the 
settlement of 1831, had already released and assigned to Mr. 
Boott all claims, present and reversionary. 

The release was in these words : — 

" The undersigned, heirs at law of the late Kirk Boott, of Boston, 
Esquire, do hereby exonerate and discharge John W. Boott, executor 
of the last will and testament of Kirk Boott, from all claims and de- 
mands in his capacity of executor as aforesaid." [B. App. p. 28.] 

This paper, I formerly mentioned, was drawn up by me. It 
released Mr. Boott, undoubtedly, from all his indebtedness to 



374 



the heirs who signed it, for moneys, whatever they were, 
then due and payable by him as executor. The probable 
amount of that indebtedness will presently be considered. 
In my view it was a considerable sum ; and, for that reason, 
I speak of the paper as materially affecting Mr. Boott's posi- 
tion. But, however important it may have been to Mr. 
Boott, it is quite unimportant to the present discussion, since 
the "Reply" insists, as before shown, that the account of 
1844 was intended to be, and is, a complete account of all 
moneys received and paid by Mr. Boott, in the management 
of his father's estate, and of all that he was in any way ac- 
countable for, without regard to the release. I should take 
no other notice, therefore, of the release than to remind my 
readers of the circumstances, under which it was given, were 
I not called upon to answer some of Mr. Lowell's comments 
concerning it. 

" The intention," he admits, " certainly was to discharge 
him [Mr. Boott] only so far as the property heyond the amount 
of the trust fund was concerned." But he thinks it doubtful, at 
least, whether the language is not broad enough to have dis- 
charged him in law, from all liability for the property of the 
trust fund itself, meaning the fund for Mrs. Boott. '' This,'^ 
he remarks, " was, to say the least, exceedingly careless ; with 
a man of honor, like Mr. Boott, no risk was incurred by this 
phraseology ; it hardly behoves Mr. Brooks, however, to be 
too severe on mere errors of form." [L. p. 83-4.] 

The foundation of this imputation of exceeding careless- 
ness seems to be an idea, that I had supposed Mr. Boott not to 
be discharged from his liability for the trust fund, merely be- 
cause the paper speaks of claims and demands upon him as ex- 
ecutor, and does not speak of claims and demands upon him 
as trustee. Mr. Lowell appears to have formed that idea from 
this expression of mine : " His present liability, as executor, 
was discharged ; his responsibilities, present or future, as trus- 
tee, were untouched ; " [B. p. 46.] and he thereupon suggests, 
truly enough, that, although Mr. Boott might, if he had pleased, 
have filed a trustee's bond, and, under that, might have opened 
a new account at the probate office for this fund, distinctly. 



375 

under the name of trustee^ yet, that he had, m fact, never 
done so, and therefore still held the fund in his capacity of 
executor, and under his executor's bond, though acting in the 
character of a special trustee. It is for this reason that Mr. 
Lowell appears to consider a release of all claims and demands 
against Mr. Boott, as executor, adequate to have discharged 
him from all liability for account of the trust fund. This is 
another of Mr. Lowell's mistakes. There was none on my 
part, I believe, either in the form or the effect of the paper ; 
although my remark upon it, above cited, may have been 
liable to the misconstruction Mi. Lowell has put upon it. 

The true reason, why I considered this release to be no 
discharge from liability for the particular $100,000 trust fund, 
(which I had chiefly in mind,) was, — not because I supposed 
it to be held by Mr. Boott in his capacity of trustee, as some- 
thing legally distinct from his capacity of executor, but-^simply 
because there were no claims or demands of the heirs, upon 
that fund, then existing. If Mr. Lowell consults his counsel, 
they will tell him, that a mere general release cannot operate, 
prospectively, on future rights and claims. It discharges 
nothing but the immediate existing liability. The heirs could 
not have any claim, or demand, against Mr. Boott, either as 
executor, or as trustee, for the $100,000 trust fund, until the 
death of IVIrs. Boott. There is not the least room, therefore, 
for the doubt suggested by Mr. Lowell, for the purpose of 
imputing carelessness to me. If the object had been to ex- 
tinguish Mr. Boott's future liability to the heirs, for their 
respective portions of the trust fund, tvords of assignment, 
to him, would have been necessary, (like those in the deed 
from Messrs. Lyman & Ralston,) which this paper does not 
contain. He remained, after its execution, just as he did 
before, subject to account, at the death of Mrs. Boott, to the 
legal owners of the reversion, whoever they might then be. 

And so, in respect to the two other particular funds, of 
which the income was to go to his aunts, during their lives ; 
if they were living, at the date of the release, he was not dis- 
charged of the liability, which would arise at their respect- 
ive deaths, to account with the heirs for those sums. I have 



376 

ascertained, however, since my former pamphlet, that one of 
them was then dead ; the other not ; so that the release 
might have operated in respect to one of those funds, but 
not in respect to the other ; and, thus far, there may have 
been a degree of inaccuracy in my former remark, but none, 
that I perceive, in the form of the paper. 

Mr. Boott's exact position, as to accountability, all round, 
after the release of 1833, was this : — Dr. Francis Boott had 
given him no discharge, general or particular, to my knowl- 
edge, although he had received a sum, which may have 
been his full portion of the estate distributable in the life- 
time of the annuitants. Messrs. Lyman and Ralston, and 
their wives, had, by their assignment of September, 1831, 
discharged him from all accountability to them, present or 
future, for any thing beyond what they had previously re- 
ceived, and beyond what was virtually paid to them by the 
terms of that settlement. The other parties, who signed the 
release of 1833, discharged him from all that was then due 
and payable, beyond the sums they had already respectively 
received, — some more, and some less, as I supposed, at the 
time, and still do, — but they held him accountable, at a future 
day, for the amount of such trust funds as were not presently 
distributable ; and he was bound, of course, to clear off from 
those trust funds, all the private incumbrances, which he had 
laid upon them, so as to be able to pay to the heirs, in full, 
their respective shares, when they should become due. 
Mr. Lowell afterwards remarks : — 

" He [Mr. Boott] had nothing therefore to do, when summoned 
to render his accounts, but to exhibit this discharge, and show his in- 
vestment of the trust funds, and his mother's acknowledgement that 
she had received or authorized the expenditure of the income. His 
position would have been thus perfectly impregnable." [L. p. 206.] 

Now waiving, for the present, all question about the appli- 
cation of the income, I desire to inquire how it would have 
been possible, if Mr. Boott had stated an account on this prin- 
ciple, and had made good the trust fund, for Mr. Lowell to 
have got his $25,000 ? Mr. Booths position, if the trust fund 
had been made whole, might have been impregnable, if you 



377 

please ; but what would have been Mr. LowelVs position, in 
respect to the payment of his debt ? 

The reader must have observed that the great ingenuity 
of the present account consists in this : that it provides, by an 
apparent cash balance of $25,000 due to the executor, for 
the payment of the debt to Mr. Lowell, in full, while it leaves 
property enough, at the valuation assumed, to make Mrs. 
Boott's trust fund pretty nearly whole, and at the same time 
conceals, from casual observers, the fact, that there is, after 
all, a deficiency in that. But how could Mr. Lowell, after 
providing for his own payment in full ^ have prepared, in 1844, 
an account for Mr. Boott, founded on this release of 1833, 
that would have been one whit better for Mr. Boott, or rather 
that would not have been infinitely worse for him, than the 
account, which Mr. Lowell did prepare, in 1844? — an account, 
by the way, which never could have been passed, in the pro- 
bate court, but by the consent of the heirs, under the compro- 
mise that was made. 

The account, supposed to be so impregnable, is to begin in 
1833, and must begin, as Mr. Lowell admits, with the amount 
of the then undistributable trust funds, invested, as trustee, or 
as executor, in something. That amount, — one of the aunts 
being then alive, — was $105,555 56. When, how, and in 
what this sum had been invested, was the very first matter to 
be proved. It must have appeared upon inquiry, at a probate 
hearing, that the original distinct investment as executor, 
stated by the probate account of 1818, had been broken up ; 
that the funds proceeding from it had gone, partly at least, 
into the hands of Boott & Lowell, and had, wholly, been 
mixed and amalgamated with Mr. Boott's own funds, undis- 
tinguishably, until the reconstruction of a trust fund by the 
transactions of May, 1831. The investment of the requisite 
sum at that time, and according to the prices of that time, 
must then have been shown ; because the heirs had a right, 
and not Mr. Boott, to any gain from rise in value of the in- 
vestment ; just as they, and not he, must have borne any loss 
from its fall in value. Such gain, if there were any, v/ould 
have become apart of the trust fund; and the release of 1833 

48 



378 

would not have affected that. Being thus, necessarily^ re- 
ferred to the vahie, which the property, marked for the estate y 
had in May, 1831, how was Mr. Boott to show a clear trust 
investment, subsisting, in 1833, and thence to 1844, of 
$105,555 56, or even of Mrs. Boott's $100,000? 

He had not, in 1833, a single piece of property standing in 
his name as executor, except twenty-one shares of Merrimack 
stock, which had been released to him by Mr. Sturgis, in 
November, 1831, and the stable. All the rest was held, 
either by Mr. Lowell, in pledge for a debt of at least $46,000, 
or by me in trust for the debt on the guardianship account. 
It is true, that, in 1844, when it is supposed that the impreg- 
nable account might have been made up, both the guardian- 
ship debt, and $21,000 of the debt to Mr. Lowell, had been 
paid off, — out of what means we shall presently see ; but, 
still, it was impossible for Mr. Boott to show a clear invest- 
ment of $105,000 and upwards, made previous to 1833, and 
remaining clear in 1844. All he could show of remaining 
property, in 1844, was the stable, the seventy-one shares of 
Merrimack, and the thirty-nine shares of Boston Manufac- 
turing Company, which are mentioned in the account actually 
rendered. These he was bound to charge at their value in 
1831, when they first became a specific investment for the 
estate ; and he could not even produce the certificates of those 
shares, except upon paying the balance due to Mr. Lowell, 
unless Mr. Lowell were willing to give them up, voluntarily, 
and gratuitously. Having no other means to pay that debt, 
he must either have credited the estate with the equity of 
redemption, only, in the shares, which were pledged to Mr. 
Lowell, (or, in other words, must have charged his debt to 
Mr. Lowell directly and openly upon the estate,) or else, if 
Mr. Lowell were willing to waive his lien, and surrender the 
shares to Mr. Boott, as executor, so that he might produce 
the proper evidence of his investment, the debt to Mr. Lowell 
nmst have been left unpaid, and without any security for it, 
except the security of Mr. Boott's reversionary interest, which 
would be unavailable until his mother's death. 

This is easily seen by appealing once more to figures : — 



379 

71 shares of Merrimack, at $1160, (the market price 

of 1831,) are $B2,360 00 

o9 shares of Boston, at S700, (the market price of 

1831,) are 2^,300 00 



109,660 00 

Stable, if valued at what it produced in 1844, 1,500 00 

Total property, at the value of 1831, if clear of incum- 
brance, 11], 160 00 

Balance of debt, due to Mr. Lowell, S25,000, but which, 
by the rise of stock in 1844, might have been paid oiF 

by shares, worth, in 1831, about 23,000 00 

Balance of property left for the trust funds, 88,160 00 

Deficiency, 17,395 56 

Required amount of trust funds, 105,555 56 



Or, total property as above, at the valuation of 1831, 111,160 00 
Take out the required trust funds, 105,555 6Q 



Left, to go towards Mr. Lowell's debt, property worth, 

in 1831, only 5,604 44 

And worth, by the advance of 1844, less than 6,200 00 



In short, upon that principle, and that valuation, either the 
trust fund, or the fund to pay Mr. Lowell, must have been 
deficient, by from $17,000 to $19,000. 

But the fact of a deficiency does not depend on that valu- 
ation. A different one might have reduced it ; but no valu- 
ation, that could plausibly have been contended for, loould 
have been adequate to cover and extinguish it. 

Shall we choose the fair average market value of these two 
stocks, taken together ? That, for a series of years, is not 
above their original par of f 1000 per share. From 1831 
to the present time, the Merrimack stock has seldom been 
more than thirty per cent, above par ; it has sometimes been 
very much below par; the stock of the Boston Manufac- 
turing Company has seldom been at a less discount than 
thirty per cent, from the original par, and has often been 
considerably lower. The average market value of the sev- 
enty-one shares of Merrimack, probably, would not exceed 
$82,000, which is more than fifteen per cent, advance ; that 



380 

of the thirty-^niiie shares of Boston certainly would not reach 
$29,300, which is $700 a share ; and these prices would 
place the average of the two together at less than $1000 per 
share. Taking them, however at $1000, as a full average, 
the stocks, with the stable added, at $1500, amount to 
$111,500.* Bat the debt to the trust fund ($105,555 56) 
and the balance of Mr. Lowell's debt ($25,000) amount, to- 
gether, to $130,555 56 ; that is, they exceed the property, tak- 
ing the stocks at par^ by nearly $20,000. 

Shall we, then take the stocks at the actual market val- 
ue of April, 1833 ? the date, at which the impregnable ac- 
count is supposed to begin. That would proceed upon the 
theory that the executor was, then, to turn out $100,000, 
in cash, or its equivalent at that day. But, upon that valua- 
tion, we shall find the whole property (stable included) 
amounts to less than ^ 100,000, and the deficiency, of course, 
mounts up to more than $30j000.t 

Shall we come, then, to the market value of November^ 
1844 ? when the supposed account was to be rendered, and 
when manufacturing stocks ruled high. If so, we find these 
shares, then, actually appraised at twenty-eight per cent, ad- 
vance for Merrimacks, and $725 per share for the Boston 
Manufacturing Company. [See the inventory returned by 
C. G. Loring, trustee, B. App. p. 55.] This high valuation 
brings the whole property, (stable included,) up to $120,655, 
—a great improvement, but still about $10,000 short of the 
required amount. 

There have been times, within the period from 1831 to 
1844, when the property, at its market price, would have been 

* 71 shares, .--....... $71,000 

39 " . .-..--*.. 39,000 

Stable, -. - - - - ^ - - ^ =■ 1,500 

111,500 

1 1 have found no record of sales in the month of April., 1 833 ; but in the month 
of March, Merrimack shares were sold at less than 95 per cent. ; and, in the month 
oi June, Boston shares were sold at $700. In April, the latter were probably no- 
worth more than $650. Taking the Merrimacks, however, at par, and the Bost 
ton at $700, and the stable at $1500, (all excessive valuations for April, 1831,) the 
total is $99,800. 



381 

greatly below either of the above valuations ; none, I believe, 
when the two stocks, together^ would have risen above the 
highest of them. At the very time of my writing, the whole 
property is not saleable for more than $110,000. Of course, 
if Mr. Lowell's debt were now to be taken out of it, the bal- 
ance would fail, by $20,000, to make good the required 
amount of the trust funds in 1833. 

But the price, at which a trustee has a right, and is bound, 
to charge trust property in his account, cannot depend upon 
these market fluctuations ; still less upon the price of the day 
of his own choosing, at which he may please to render and 
settle a probate account. That would be accounting upon 
no principle at all. There can be but one alternative. We 
must either take the fair market value of the property, at the 
time it was first turned over to the trust account, (and this I 
submit is the only sound principle,) or we must assume, with 
Mr* Lowell, the right of a trustee to charge the property to 
his trust at its actual cost to him, as an individual, when he 
first purchased it, though in his own name, and, apparently, 
for his own use. 

The latter is the principle adopted in the actual account 
of 1841; and it so happens, that this valuation, selected by 
Mr. Lowell, makes a nearer approximation to the requisite 
amount than even the high market prices of that day. They, 
as we have seen, produced an aggregate value of $120,655. 
The alleged cost to Mr. Boott, though it puts Merrimack at par, 
brings up the shares of the Boston Manufacturing Company 
in part to $1150, and in part to $1300, per share, and the 
stable to ^2500, making an aggregate of $121,500. [See the 
account, B. App. p. 44. and L. p. 39.] But the trust fund and 
Mr. Lowell's debt require $130,555 56. There is still a de- 
ficiency of more than $9000. 

How was this to be got rid of, upon an account starting 
in 1833 ? Why, in no other manner, nor to any greater ex- 
tent, than it is got rid of by the actual account of 1844. 
That is, only by sinking the %o665 56, which formed part 
of the required trust fund in 1833, (although it is not pre- 
tended that any thing had ever been divided among the heirs 



382 

after that date^) and calling the whole trust fund $100,000 
only, being that, which was still requisite, in 1844, for the 
support of Mrs. Boott. The effect is, to diminish the appa- 
rent deficiency to about $3500, — below which it could by 
no possibility be reduced, even granting Mr. Lowell's tacit 
assumption that both the aunts had died before the release 
of 1833, and his avowed assumption that Mr. Boott had 
a right to charge these properties at their original cost to 
him. 

Instead of Mr. Boott's position being more impregnable, 
then, with an account founded upon the release, than with 
the account actually exhibited, there would have been, if Mr. 
Lowell's debt is to be provided for in full, (admitting the trust 
funds for the aunts to be wholly sunk and shut out of sight, 
and admitting the most favourable valuation possible of the 
property,) just about the same deficiency, in Mi's. Boott's 
$100,000 trust fund, as exists in the account of 1844.* But 
there would also have been this very unpleasant difference. 
The deficiency must have been perfectly plain and palpable 
on the face of the suppositious account, and there would not 
have been the same shadow of an excuse for it as is created 
by the account of 1844. 

No man, who looks at that account, would ever guess, un- 
less after a most careful and analytical investigation, that 
there was any deficiency in the $100,000 fund. Mr. Low- 
ell taunts me for not having better understood its myste- 
rious and tacit annunciations, '' after passing," as he says, 
^' months in their analysis, aided by Mr. William Boott, and by 
two of the ablest lawyers in Boston." [L. p. 37.] He seems 
to think it rather an act of cleverness in accounts, to have stat- 
ed one, which was to be the foundation of a family settle- 
ment, in such form, that nobody would be likely to perceive, 
upon an ordinary examination, what it really meant. And 
when he finds me misled, by my reliance on its fii'st apparent 
meaning, into a mistake, which he admits was "an inno- 
cent and not very unnatural one,'" [L. p. 43.] he appears 

* In that it is $3715 45. [L. p. 40.] 



383 

to rejoice in the opportunity of exhibiting (by an analysis, 
which I admit to be entirely correct, though far from obvious,) 
a demonstration of the fact, that, in consequence of over-pay- 
ment to the heirs, if the cash entries on each side are admitted 
to be true and complete, there was, after all, a deficiency in 
Mrs. Boott's trust fund,^ (Mr. Lowell's own debt being first pro- 
vided for,) of $3715 45. [L. pp. 40, 41.) Yet, the curiosity 
of the thing is, that neither the fact that there is such a defi- 
ciency, nor the fact that Mr. Lowell's debt is to be paid out of 
the property of the estate, is suggested by any obvious state- 
ment on the /ace of that account. I ask the reader to look at 
it, and he cannot fail to look with admiration at a most in- 
genious contrivance. A certain inventory is charged, certain 
alleged receipts of money are charged, and certain payments 
of money and deliveries of specific property, mentioned in the 
inventory, are credited, all prior to the release of 1833. They 
result in leaving an apparent balance, to be accounted for, 
(including the mansion-house,) of $120,284 55 

and then property (including the 
mansion-house,) is stated, as held 
by the executor, to the amount of 145,500 00 
" less cash balance due to the exec- 
utor'' 25,215 45 



120,284 55 



Thus, without saying one word about the amount supposed 
to be on hand for the trust fund, or about any debt to Mr. 
Lowell, which is to be paid out of the property, the account 
stands exactly balanced by a certain smu, apparently, due to 
the executoT. This sum we find to be just a fraction more 
than sufficient to pay Mr. Lowell ; and, when deducted from 
the aggregate of the property, at the valuation assumed, (the 
mansion-house, which had nothing to do with the executor's 
account, being also deducted,) the subtraction is found to 
leave a second sum, which, when compared with other sums, 
debited and credited in the account, and also with the $100,000 
of undisputed trust fund, leads, remotely, to the discovery of a 



384 

deficiency of $3700 in that fund.* A more ingenious mode 
of hiding the whole truth, under a mass of figures, plausible 
upon their face, could hardly have been devised, if that had 
been the very object aimed at. Now I am far from saying 
that such was Mr. Lowell's intention. I say nothing about 
his intentions or motives. But I do say, that such is the fact ^ 
as every one vndcj see for himself, who consults that accoimt, 
and reads Mr. Lowell's explanations of it. 

But how would it have been, if the account had begun, (as 
Mr. Lowell intimates that he himself recommended to Mi\ 
Boott,) [L. p. 31.] '^from the date of the discharge ?" Even 
admitting his erroneous assumption that both the aunts were 
dead in 1833, and admitting his erroneous assumption that 
the property held by the executor was rightfully charged at 
its original cost to Mr. Boott, how would the case then have 
stood, on the face of the account ? All matters, which appear 
in the present account, of a date prior to 1833, it will be ob- 
served, are now to be discarded. The account is to begin 
with $100,000 of trust fund, invested — in what? Some of 
the same property, of course, which the accomit now exhibits, 
(excepting the mansion-house,) charged at its original cost to 
Mr. Boott. 

But the total of that property, (excepting the 
mansion-house,) so charged, was only $121,500 

and the greater part of it was subject to Mr. 
Lowell's alleged lien of 25,000 



This would leave for the trust property, 96,500 

and, if that simple form of statement were adopt- 
ed, it would exhibit, boldly and palpably, the fact 
of the pledge to Mr. Lowell, and the fact of a 
deficiency in the trust fund to the amount of 3,500 



100,000 



In other words, it would openly declare that so much of 
the trust fund had been taken to pay Mr. Lowell. 

* See Mr. Lowell'> omhi demonstration. [L. p. 40.] 



385 

A like amount of deficiency, it is true, is deducihle from the 
present account ; but it is not obvious ; and when deduced ^ 
with some difficulty, the fact stands coupled with the excuse 
of an apparent over-paij7nent to the heirs of a corresponding 
amount. But that excuse is derived, solely, from those en- 
tries, in the present account, which relate to transactions 
prior to the date of the release, and which, therefore, could 
not be made to appear in an account beginning at that date. 

Perhaps, after stating the property, which had been trans- 
ferred of record to the executor, and charging it at $121 j500 
Mr. Lowell would have claimed for Mr. Boott, upon 
the principle he now contends for, a portion of the 
property, as belonging to Mr. Boott, viz. 21,500 



$100,000 
This would leave the trust fund, apparently, whole, if we 
agree to the valuation of the property at $121,500 ; but, in 
that case, if he could make out the fact that so much of the 
property belonged to Mr. Boott, only $21,500 would have 
been taken out for the payment of Mr. Lowell's debt, and he 
could not have been paid in full. 

The only other mode he could have adopted, so far as I can 
discern, would have been to select, fii'st, for the trust fimd, that 
portion of the manufacturing stock, which had cost him high- 
est, compared with its real value in 1844. Thus, he might, 
perhaps, have taken the thirty-nine shares of Boston Manufac- 
turing Company, which originally cost him, as the present 
account states, $48,000, and might have added to that fifty- 
two shares of Merrimack, which had cost him only par, 
being $52,000. This would have made the trust fund, no7n- 
inally, whole, and would have left for Mr. Boott, besides the 
stable, nineteen shares of Merrimack ; and these items of 
property, according to their market value at the date of the 
account, would have sufficed to pay Mr. Lowell. But the 
shares of Boston Manufacturing Company were, then, actually 
worth about twenty thousand dollars less than their original 
cost to Mr. Boott. The fifty-two shares of Merrimack were 
worth only about $14,000 more than their cost to Mr, Boott. 

49 



386 

The difference would have made a positive loss to the trust 
fund of §6000. So that, although Mr. Lowell might, possi- 
bly, in that mode, have contrived to pay himself in full, and 
yet to return into the probate office an account for Mr. Boott, 
fair upon its face, what would that have been but an actual 
and direct fraud upon the mother, brothers and sisters of the 
nominal accounting party ? They would have been, thereby, 
provided with a selection of property, charged at $100,000, 
which was really worth only about $94,000 ; and they 
would have been thus deprived of $6000, for the mere sake 
of paying Mr. Lowell in full, rather than paying them in 
full. Would Mr. Lowell have ventured to advise to this 
course ? Would Mr. Boott have adopted it ? And had it 
been attempted, the question would, at once, have arisen of 
Mr. Boott 's right to make so unfair a selection, and of his 
right to charge these high priced shares to his trust account, 
at the cost, to himself, of an original purchase in his own pri- 
vate name, — without which, in no form of stating the account, 
could a tolerable approximation be made to an apparent ac- 
counting for the whole trust fund, after deducting, out of the 
aggregate property, enough to pay Mr. Lowell in full. 

Now I do not mean to assert, that all these considerations 
actually entered into Mr. Lowell's mind, when preparing 
the account in the form, which he adopted. It may be a 
mere coincidence, that that form happens to he the best, that 
could possibly have been devised, for the threefold purpose 
of pa.ying Mr. Lowell in full, encroaching as little as possi- 
ble, (consistently with his payment in full,) on the trust fund, 
and hiding the fact, from all common observation, that there 
is such an encroachment. 

Had the account begun, as Mr. Lowell says he at first 
suggested, with the discharge of 1833, and a statement of 
the condition of the trust fund at that date, this would, un- 
doubtedly, have been the fair and correct mode of stating 
and settling the executor's accounts ; and, supposing Mr. 
Lowell's alleged lien upon the stocks to have been unim- 
peachable, such an account, disclosing that lien, would have 
been perfectly unexceptionable to the heirs. It would have 



387 

shown, after paying Mr. Lowell, a large deficiency in the 
trust fund, it is true; but no heir would have hesitated, in 
my belief, upon our then state of information, either to have 
sanctioned the payment of Mr. Lowell's debt out of the prop- 
erty, or to have given to Mr. Boott a full discharge from all 
his liability to the heirs, on account of that deficiency. If 
Mr. Lowell advised, as he now intimates, to the statement of 
an account upon that principle, which was the true one, it is 
difficult to imagine why Mr. Boott, with all the uprightness 
of intention that I attribute to him, should have been unwill- 
ing to adopt it. I find it difficult to reconcile the fact, as 
stated by Mr. Lowell, with his hypothesis that Mr. Boott was 
at that time perfectly in hijs right mind, and possessed of 
a clear and discriminating judgement, unless I abandon my 
own idea, that it was not his wish and intention to state 
any other than a true account, according to the views, which 
he then took, clouded, as they were, by an unfortunate hallu- 
cination. And if Mr. Boott refused, as Mr. Lowell says he 
did, to adopt that form of account, and insisted upon taking 
up the accomits from the beginning of his executorship, not- 
withstanding the discharge of 1833, how could Mr. Lowell 
himself have consented to go on, against his own judgement, 
in making up an account upon the false principle, which, it 
seems, was finally adopted ? How could he have persuaded 
himself to take the money of the estate, ($3700 at least, of 
the trust fund, upon his own admissions,) Avhich a statement 
of the account upon that false principle gives him, without 
insisting that the fact should appear, plainly, on the face of 
the account, or without at least insisting that it should, in 
some form, be communicated to the heirs? Above all, how 
can he persist, now, in assuring the public, that the account, 
so stated, is perfectly correct, that the balance claimed for 
Mr. Boott is a real one, and that nothing but Mr. Boott's pri- 
vate property was ever appropriated to the payment of his 
debts ? 



388 



4^ 



CHAPTER XXXVIII 



FAILURE OF THE ^' REPLY " TO ESTABLISH MR. BOOTT's RIGHT 
TO CHARGE STOCKS AT PRICES CLAIMED IN THE ACCOUNT. 



This asserted right, of charging the thirty-nine shares of 
Boston Manufacturing Company at their original cost to Mr. 
Boottj depends, entirely, upon due proof of antecedent facts ; 
namely, that when bought at that price, they were bought 
specifically for the trust, and that they were not afterwards 
alienated by the trustee, nor taken to his own account as an 
individual, but were constantly kept and held for the trust. 

Now how does the question stand, between Mr. Lowell and 
myself, on this point ? Having ascertained from the records 
of the Boston Manufacturing Company, [B. App. p. 32.] that 
Mr. Boott was, in 1820, an original subscriber, in his own 
name, for thirty shares of that stock, issued at $1150; that in 
1822 he had purchased six more shares from Dr. Jackson ; and 
that in 1826 he had again purchased twenty-one shares from 
Mr. Kirk Boott, and finding that, in the account of 1844, 
eighteen shares, only, were charged at the original subscrip- 
tion price, and twenty-one at $1300, I ventured to put the 
following inquiries : — 

"With whose funds werQ the thirty originally bought in 1820, and 
the six in 18*22 ? Why should the whole twenty-one, which were 
purchased in 1826, be placed to the account of the estate at $1300, 
and the remaining eighteen^ only, be placed there at the cost of the 
original subscription, when thirty shares were purchased at their 
cost?" [B. p. 119.] 

Mr. Lowell's answer is characteristic enough. 

"The audacity of this passage defies all competition. Does Mr. 
Brooks know for whom the thirty shares were subscribed for in 1820 ? 
or the price paid for the six shares in 1822? or how the twenty-one 
shares in 1826 were procured?" [L. p. 69.] 



389 

Certainly not. If I had known, I should not have asked. 
How should I know, when all the stocks, whether purchased 
with trust funds or otherwise, were subscribed for, bought, 
and held for years, in Mr. Boott's private name ? Yet when 
shares, so bought, held, and dealt with as these were, come to 
be charged in a trust account, some twenty years after, at 
two prices, both greatly above, and one nearly double, the 
then market value, and when they are so charged in an ac- 
count, which does not show when, or how, or with what 
funds, they were originally purchased, Mr. Lowell considers it 
an '' audacity, ^^ which '' defies all competition," for one of 
the reversionary owners of the property, simply to inquire, 
why they are so charged. 

No, says Mr. Lowell : — 

" He knows no one of these points, vital to the issue he has raised. 
Nor did I, when I put the accounts in form for Mr. Boott from the 
data furnished by him. But I have since thoroughly investigated the 
matter, and 1 will enlighten Mr. Brooks." [L. p. 69.] 

Light is precisely what I wanted ; but the information, I 
get, is this : — 

" 1. The thirty shares subscribed for by Mr. Boott, in 1820, were 
appropriated by him at the time as follows : eighteen to his trust fund, 
four to Mrs. F. Boott, and two to each of his four wards." [L. p. 69.] 

In proof of this, an entry is produced from the cash book 
of Boott & Lowell, under the date of April 1, 1822, by which 
it appears that a dividend, received on the thirty shares, was 
distributed in those proportions, between Mr. Boott's mother 
and the members of the F. Boott family. " There never 
were, then," concludes Mr. Lowell, " but eighteen shares of 
the original subscription, that belonged to, or had been pur- 
chased with, the funds of his father's estate." [L. p. 70.] 

So far all runs smooth and clear. As to the thirty shares 
of original subscription in 1820, I admit myself answered, at 
least to a certain extent. It appears, from the manner, in 
which Mr. Boott treated the dividend, in 1822, that twelve of 
those shares were then regarded by Mr. Boott as belonging to 
the F. Boott family, and eighteen as belonging to his mother's 



390 

trust fund, — none as belonging to himself. But how does 
this account for his having pledged to Mr. Lowell, in 1827-30, 
a part at least of these same eighteen shares for his private 
debt? Did he then regard them as belonging to his trust 
fund ? Or had he, in the mean time, taken them to his own 
account ? 

2. As to the six shares, bought in 1822, they are shown, 
by referring to Dr. Jackson's books, to have been bought, 
from him, at $1500. " Yet," says Mr. Lowell, — as if it were a 
merit, — '' he does not charge these to the estate." [L. p. 70.] 
With good reason ; for we are informed, on the very next 
page, that Mr. Boott, in 1827, sold these same shares, with 
others belonging to his wards, at the same price ; for which, 
reference is made to the books of Boott & Lowell, and also 
to the books of Mr. John Lowell, Jr., as proofs in Mr. John 
A. Lowell's possession. That is, by omitting these transac- 
tions in his probate account, Mr. Boott treats them as his 
own. To be sure, this does not prove what/wnc?5 were used 
in the purchase ; and whether dividends on these six shares 
are, or are not, included in the gross sum of 0274,000 and 
upwards, charged in the account as income, nobody but Mr. 
Lowell can tell. But, since the shares were bought and 
sold at the same price, there was, as Mr. Lowell justly re- 
marks, neither gain nor loss on the transaction, and so far I 
am answered. 

3. In respect to the twenty-one shares, derived from Mr. 
Kirk Boott in 1826, and charged to the trust, in 1844, at 
$1300, the account given is, that Mr. J. Wright Boott became 
entitled to them '' in virtue of an arrangement between the 
Boston and Merrimack Companies, in August, 1823," de- 
scribed as follows : — 

" In order to effect a sale of the patent rights of the Boston Man- 
ufacturing Company to the Merrimack Manufacturing Company, and 
a transfer of the machine-shop and of Mr. Moody's services from 
Walthara to Chelmsford, without any possibility of injury to any one, 
it was arranged, that every proprietor should buy, or sell, a sufficient 
number of shares to make him a holder of the same number of shares 
in each company ; and that these exchanges should be effected with a 
difference of price in favor of the Boston Manufacturing Company 



391 

of thirty per cent. This made the shares in the Boston Company^ so 
obtained, cost to the Merrimack proprietors, SI 300 each." [L. p. 70.] 

Mr. Lowell adds, in further explanation : — 

"This arrangement was made in August, 1823, during Mr. Wright 
Boott's ahsence in Europe. Mr. Kirk Boott, having no power to 
transfer his hrother's Merrimack shares, supplied their place by his 
own, and took the Boston shares in his own name. On settlement 
with his brother in 1826, he conveyed to him the Boston shares, 
which had always belonged to him ; but look the transfer of Merri- 
mack shares as a sale on his own account, at par." [L. p. 71.] 

Now, here, Mr. Lowell's perspicuity, if he means to be per- 
spicuous, fails remarkably. It is impossible to see, from this, 
that these shares, transferred to Mr. J. Wright Boott, individu- 
ally, in 1826, and which "had always belonged to him^^ as 
Mr. Lowell says, since 1823, were intended by him, at the 
time, to be taken as a specific investment for his trust fund, 
or that they were ever treated as such before the arrangements 
of May, 1831. 

In the first place, Mr. J. Wright Boott, in August, 1823, 
when it is said these shares were purchased for him by his 
brother Kirk, held, in his own name, for whatever private 
accounts, thirty-six shares of the Boston Manufacturing Com- 
pany, and fifty-six of the Merrimack Manufacturing Compa- 
ny. This appears by the records of those companies. [B. 
App. pp. 30, 32.] He wanted therefore twenty^ only, of the 
Boston shares, and not twenty-one^ to equalize his interest. 
And whose interest was his interest ? For whom^ did he hold 
the fifty-six shares of Merrimack, which were to be offset by 
as many shares of the Boston? No mortal, unless it be Mr. 
Lowell, can tell, — and he does not tell. Were they a// looked 
upon as a specific investment for his trust fund ? The Mer- 
rimack stock, Mr. Lowell informs us, was doubled in 1824 ; 
[L. p. 72.] but Mr. Boott's subscription to that new stock 
was for forty shares, not fifty-six. So says the record. [B. 
App. p. 30.] His right of subscription, for sixteen, must have 
been transferred, it would seem, to somebody, the stock being 
then worth more than par. For whose benefit? Not the es- 
tate's surely, or the profit, not being income, would, or at least 



392 

should, appear distinctly in the probate account. Did the 
forty new shares, then, which he in fact took, and took in his 
own name, belong to his trust ? They certainly would, if 
forty of the old shares did, since the right to the new stock 
was merely an incident to the ownership of the old, share 
for share ; and if the trust fund was unable to pay for the 
new shares, the premium on the right to take them should 
have come as profit to the estate, and should appear in the 
probate account. He thus held, in January, 1824, ninety-six 
Merrimack shares, new and old, all in his own private name. 
The stock record shows this. He sold, in the same year, 
sixteen of these shares, as the record shows, [B. App. p. 30.] 
having previously sold, or transferred, as it seems, his right 
of subscription to an equal number of the then contemplated 
new stock. 

Mr. Lowell, in order to account for the fact that no profit 
on such a sale appears in the executor's account, undertakes to 
tell us for whose account the sixteen shares were sold. He 
says : — 

" Four belonged jointly to himself, Mr. Kirk Boott, and Mr. James 
Boott, being the residue of their interest as owners of one fourth of 
the original speculation ; the other twelve belonged to Mrs. F. Boott 
and his wards, and were sold, on the occasion of the stock being 
doubled, in October, 1824." (L. p. 72.) 

Ix would seem, according to this, that the fifty-six shares of 
original subscription to the Merrimack stock, in 1822, must 
have been regarded by Mr. Boott, though standing in his own 
name, as a mixed interest, belonging partly to his father's es- 
tate, partly to Mrs. F. Boott and her children, and partly to a 
joint private interest of himself and his two brothers. If it 
became necessary, then, in 1823, to buy twenty shares in 
the Boston Company at a high price, for the purpose of 
equalizing interests, represented by him in the two compa- 
nies, '' without any possibility of injury to any one," [L. p. TO.] 
how happens it, that all those twenty shares, and one in addi- 
tion, should have been taken to the account oi his fathef s es- 
tate in 1826, when their market value was only about ^900, 



393 

instead of $1300, a share,* and that they should be charged, 
in 1844, as a specific investment for the estate, at $1300, (the 
price of 1823,) although there is nothing to show that they 
were ever put to the trust account until 1844, when the mar- 
ket value was only $725, being little more than one half 
their cost ? How happens this, when the interests, to be 
equalized by the purchase, are now stated not to have belong- 
ed, exclusively, to the estate, but to have been the mixed 
property of several parties ? 

Another difficulty, which presents itself, is this : — A part 
of Mr. Lowell's explanation is, that twelve of the Merrimack 
shares, sold in 1824, belonged to his wards and Mrs. F. Boott. 
[L. p. 72.] Yet no such transaction appears by Mr. Boott's 
probate accounts with those wards. Each of these guardian- 
ship accounts shows a purchase of two shares of Merrimack 
about that time, but no sale of the stock at any time. 

Again, it appears, not only that the twenty Boston shares, 
which Mr. J. Wright Boott was bound to purchase in 1823, 
unless he should prefer to sell twenty of his Merrimack shares, 
were changed into twenty-o?ze shares, but that the twenty-one 
were bought and paid for by his brother Kirk, who transfer- 
red in payment, or part payment, for them, it is said, twenty- 
one of his own shares of Merrimack; [L. p. 71.] that, in 
1826, (Mr. Kirk Boott having in the mean time held the Bos- 
ton shares in his own name for the benefit of his brother,) 
there was a settlement between the two brothers ; that, in and 
by that settlement, Mr. Kirk Boott's transfer of his own 
Merrimack shares, made, originally, as an accommodation 
to his brother, became converted into an actual sale for 
his own account ; and that he transferred to Mr. J. Wright 
Boott, individually, the twenty-one shares of Boston at their 
original cost of $1300 a share. That is to say, Mr. Kirk 
Boott, as the affair was finally settled, sold twenty-one shares 
of Merrimack, /or himself, in 1823, at par ; and, at the same 
time, bought twenty-one shares of Boston, for his brother 
Hn«-^^, at .$1300 a share; and Mr. J. Wright Boott, three 

*■ October 14, 1826, ten shares of this stock were sold at 90^ per cent. 
50 



394 

years after, took those Boston shares to his own private ac- 
count, (apparently,) at that price, though it was about |400 
a share more than they were then worth, and paid his brother 
Kirk for them, of course, in some form. There is nothing, 
in this, that tends to show a transaction for the specific 
account of the estate. 

The case is still further complicated by the fact, that the 
settlement between the brothers at that period, (March, 1826,) 
was not confined to this particular dealing in stocks, but em- 
braced a general settlement of their old partnership accounts, 
with which this transfer of stock appears to have been, in 
some way, connected. I refer, for this, to Mr. Kirk Boott's 
letter of Feb. 8, 1826, "written in contemplation of the ap- 
proaching partnership settlement ; [B. App. p. 15.] a settle- 
ment, in which the estate had, legally, no interest. 

Now I am far from saying that all this may not be suscept- 
ible of some explanation, consistent with the assumption that 
Mr. J. Wright Boott intended these twenty-one shares, at the 
time, specifically for the trust, and that he paid for them out 
of the trust funds at $1300 per share, though they were 
then worth only $900. All I say is, that no such explana- 
tion is yet given ; and that, on this point, Mr. Lowell, if he 
himself sees what he assumes, has at least failed to " enlighten 
Mr. Brooks." [L. p. 69.] 

" Is it not deplorable," he asks, '' to see a gentleman in Mr. 
Brooks's position, groping about in utter darkness and igno- 
rance, endeavouring to find some excuse for attacking the 
honor of the living and the dead?" [L. p. 72.] It is, indeed. 
Whether Mr. Brooks is groping for an " excuse to attack 
the honor of the living and the dead," or only for means to 
vindicate his own, is one question, upon which Mr. Lowell 
and I may differ ,* but, I think, all men will agree, that it is, 
in any case, truly deplorable, to find a person, in my position, 
obliged to grope in '' utter darkness and ignorance " concern- 
ing facts, of which I have a right to be informed, and, which 
ought to stand in plain day-light on the probate records. 

What is my position ? That of a party interested in the 
settlement of an estate. What was Mr. J. Wright Boott's 



395 

position ? That of an executor, who had it all in his hands, and 
was bound to account for it, distinctly and intelligibly. What 
is the fact ? He renders no account of any sort for six and 
twenty years. And what sort of an account does he render 
at the end of that time ? One, which shows an old and ex- 
cellent trust investment broken up, and all the stocks com- 
prised in it sold ; but does not show what was done with the 
money, nor establish the slightest visible connexion between 
the property mentioned as on hand, (the whole of which he 
holds, in 1844, nominally as executor, but really, in part, as 
the '' Reply" tells us, for his own private account,) and that 
old trust investment, which, in 1818, he certainly held, en- 
tirely^ in the single capacity of executor. The probate 
account discloses nothing of his intermediate transactions for 
the estate ; but claims, nevertheless, to charge certain stocks, 
which had stood for years in his private name, and which had 
been freely pledged for his own debts, at nearly double what 
they are worth, without showing when they were bought, 
or for what account, or Avith whose funds paid for. Without 
condescending to state the executor's investments, and changes 
of investment, his account further claims a cash balance of 
$25,000 for himself, as constituting a charge upon the prop- 
erty ; and this, notwithstanding his former admission of in- 
debtedness to the estate beyond his ability to pay, and not- 
withstanding the certainty that he neither earned, nor inherited, 
nor paid to the heirs, one dollar afterwards, by which he 
could have altered the balance of account. 

And what is Mr. Lowell's position in the matter ? He rep- 
resents Mr. Boott ; he prepared this account ; he maintains 
that it is correct ; he has in his own possession, from various 
sources, nearly all the evidence, which might throw light on 
these mysteries ; he does not produce it ; he drew up the 
account, whether purposely or carelessly, in its present form 
of obscurity ; he imputes to me the death of Mr. Boott, as 
occasioned by my unfounded charges of mismanagement in a 
trust ; and he appeals to his own unintelligible account in proof 
that the charges were unfounded, because of its purporting to 
show a cash balance due to Mr. Boott. As one answer to this, 



396 

I make it apparent, that the account, admitting all its direct 
statements to be true, does not exhibit facts enough, concern- 
ing the executor's transactions, to enable us to see whether 
such a balance is really due to him or not ; and when I call for 
information, which the account ought to give, but does not, 
concerning certain stocks, charged at a high price as a specific 
investment for the estate, Mr. Lowell explains in part, and 
mystifies in part, produces certain proofs, and withholds others, 
equally under his control, and then, having left the question, 
concerning the most objectionable parcel of the stocks, just 
as unintelligible as it was at the beginning, he winds up, at 
last, by entreating his readers to deplore that ''utter dark- 
ness and ignorance," which he himself has contributed to 
cause, and which he only has power to dispel ! 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

MORE OF MR. LOWELL's LIEN. HIS MEANS OF KNOWING THE TRUE 
OWNERSHIP OF THE STOCKS. STRANGE MISTAKES, OR MISREPRE- 
SENTATIONS. 

The question, whether these twenty-one Boston shares, of 
which we have been treating, were specifically purchased for 
the estate, or not, at the price charged, now appears, from the 
'• Reply," to depend, partly at least, on two unknown facts : 
1. Whether, in 1823, the corresponding number of Merrimack 
shares belonged, specifically, and exclusively, to the estate, 
after all other interests, represented by Mr. Boott in the two 
companies, had been equalized and satisfied : 2. Whether, 
in the settlement between Messrs. J. Wright Boott and Kirk 
Boott, in 1826, the said twenty-one Boston shares, though 
transferred to Mr. J. Wright Boott individually, and not by 



397 

the name of executor, or trustee, were, in fact, paid for out 
of the specific moneijs of the estate. 

Both these facts, if they be facts, it is in Mr. Lowell's 
power to show. Mr. Boott's subscriptions, in 1822 and 
1824, to the Merrimack stock, both old and new, fall within 
the period of the firm of Boott & Lowell, which lasted from 
Jan. 1, 1822, to July 1, 1824. [L. pp. 28-9.— B. App. p. 59.] 
During about one year of this period, Mr. Boott was in 
Europe, and the management of his private affairs, we are 
told, was left with Mr. Lowell. [L. p. 28.] The books 
of that firm are appealed to by him, to prove the true 
distributive ownership of the thirty shares of Boston stock, 
purchased in 1820, by proving the distribution of the divi- 
dends upon them in April, 1822. [L. p. 69.] Will not the 
same books show, for whose account, and with whose 
moneys, the fifty-six shares of Merrimack were originally 
bought and paid for in April, 1822, and how the subsequent 
dividends on them were distributed ? Will not the same 
books tell us how that stock was privately held in August, 
1823, when the arrangement was made between the two 
companies, which, as is said, led to the purchase of the 
twenty-one shares of Boston, to equalize the interests ? If 
we kncAV that, we should most readily see, to whose account, 
or to what several accounts, the twenty-one shares ought, 
properly, to have been put at $1300 a share. 

In the next place, Mr. Lowell, as the executor of Mr. J. 
Wright Boott, must have in his possession the evidence of 
the settlement, he speaks of, between Messrs. Kirk and J. 
Wright Boott, in March, 1826. [L. p. 71.] If we had the 
whole of that settlement before us, we should probably see, 
at once, out of what fund Mr. Kirk Boott was in fact paid for 
the twenty-one shares ; and we should probably see other 
matters, also, quite material to another branch of this inquiry. 
But none of these things are we given to see, notwithstand- 
ing Mr. Lowell's profession is to "enlighten," not only Mr. 
Brooks, but the public. 

As the case stands, the " Reply" has entirely failed to make 
out the point, that these twenty-one shares were actually 



398 

bought as a specific investment for the trust fund, or that the 
estate was bound to take them, in 1826, at the price of 1823. 
If not, there was no right to put them to the account of the 
estate at that price in 1844 ; but we are necessarily referred, 
for the price, at which they should have been charged, either 
to the market value of May, 1831, when they were first visibly 
transferred to the executor, or to the market value of 1844, 
when they are first charged to the estate, so far as yet ap- 
pears, in the probate account. 

And here, let us inquire, once more, concerning Mr. Low- 
ell's lien on the shares he held in pledge. The foundation 
of that lien, as he avers, was, that he took them, originally, 
supposing them to be the private property of Mr. Boott. [L. 
p. 29.] My agreement with Mr. Lowell, in May, 1831, by 
which the shares, when transferred to the executor, were re- 
pledged by Mr. Boott in that capacity, was founded distinctly 
on that basis, as Mr. Lowell admits. [L. p. 41.] He says he 
had not only every reason to suppose them Mr. Boott's at the 
time of the original loan, but that it was not even intimated 
by me, in the arrangement of May, 1831, that those shares 
belonged to the estate. [L. pp. 41-2.] This loan was made 
in 1827. The pledge covered, originally, eighteen shares of 
the Boston, and eighteen of the Merrimack stock ; seven more 
shares of each stock were added in 1830, making twenty-five 
of each stock then under pledge to Mr. Lowell. [B. App. pp. 
30—33.] They remained so in May, 1831. Now let us 
look at Mr. Lowell's means of knowledge of the equitable 
ownership of these shares, at the time they were thus pledged 
to him. The inquiry has a material bearing on the question 
of his interest in the settlement of the account of 1844 ; and, 
if tlie truth was, that his loan to Mr. Boott did not stand on 
the most unquestionable security, that will be found, when 
the reader comes to see the whole course of Mr. Lowell's 
conduct in this business, to be a fact, which tends strongly 
to '' elucidate the matters in controversy." 

To begin with the Boston shares. In respect to them, we 
are told, on the authority of the books of Boott & Lowell, in 
which, it seems, Mr. Boott's private cash account was kept. 



399 

and kept by Mr. Lowell himself, at least during the year of 
Mr. Boott's absence in Europe, that thirty shares, originally 
subscribed for by Mr. Boott, in his own name, belonged, eigh- 
teen of them, to his mother's trust fund, and twelve to his 
wards and to Mrs. F. Boott, their mother. [L. p. 69.] We 
are also told that six other shares were bought, in 1822, from 
Dr. Jackson, and that these, together with six of the twelve 
belonging to the wards, and to Mrs. F. Boott, their mother, 
were sold in Oct. 1827, as it is printed, — but, as I take it, by 
mistake, for Oct. 1824. [L. p. 71. and see transfers, B. App. p. 
32.] Two, of those, which belonged to Mrs. F. Boott, were 
transferred to her, in 1825, by the name of Mrs. Mary Lee, 
who was the same person. [L. p. 71.] Mr. Boott, then, after 
these sales and transfers, had left in his hands only twenty- 
two shares of this stock, namely, eighteen belonging to the 
trust fund, and four belonging to his wards, — none belonging 
to himself^ — according to Mr. Lowell's own statement and 
proof, from his own books. In 1826, Mr. Boott acquired the 
twenty-one shares from Mr. Kirk Boott, which Mr. Lowell 
has so laboured to prove were a specific investment for his 
trust. Thus forty-three shares, in all, stood in his name, 
evei^y one of them belongings according to Mr. Lowell, either 
to the trust fund of his father'' s estate, or to the trust funds 
of his wards. Mr. Lowell, when the pledges were made to 
him, in 1827 and 1830, was, moreover, himself, the treasurer 
of the Boston Manufacturing Company. He therefore knew 
that there were, as its records show, [B. App. p. 32.] no other 
shares of that stock standing in Mr. Boott's name ; and he 
knew, (since he now tells us,) for vjhom Mr. Boott held these. 
He may not have positively known indeed, at that time, what 
he must otherwise claim to have since discovered, namely, 
that the twenty-one shares, coming from Mr. Kirk Boott in 
1826, were bought specifically for the trust fund, since that 
date was after the dissolution of the firm of Boott & Lowell ; 
but he knew, at least, that those twenty-one were all the 
shares, which could, by possibility, be the private property of 
Mr. Boott, if the facts are as Mr. Lowell now states, from the 
books of Boott & Lowell, concerning the other twenty-two. 



400 

How is it possible, then, that Mr. Lowell should ha^e sup- 
posed twenty-five of those shares to be Mr. Boott's private 
property ? Or how could he, with his sentiments of the 
manifest impropriety of mingling trust funds with the private 
property of a trustee, and after his earnest remonstrances 
with Mr. J. Wright Boott on that subject, [L. p. 88.] have 
consented to take twenty five of those shares in pledge for a 
private loan to Mr. Boott, perceiving, as he must, if he looked 
to the matter, that some of them, at least, if not ally were the 
property either of his mother's trust fund, or of his wards. 

Next let us look at the Merrimack. All Mr. Boott's shares 
in that stock, except five, which came from Mr. James Boott 
in 1826, [B. App. p. 36.] were bought and paid for in the 
days of Boott &> Lowell. Ninety-six Merrimack shares, in 
all were purchased by Mr. Boott as an original subscriber, 
in 1822 and 1824 ; sixteen of them were sold, during the 
same period, in which Mr. Lowell refers to the books of 
his firm to prove the sale of the twelve Boston shares ; 
[B. App. p. 30.] and from those books it is, no doubt, that 
he also undertakes to tell us how twelve of the Merrimack 
shares were actually owned. [L. p. 72.] Four more of the 
Merrimack shares were, soon after, transferred to Mrs. Mary 
Lee, [B. App. p. 30.] making, in all, twenty, which passed 
out of Mr. Boott's hands. This left seventy-six shares still 
standing in his name, the ownership of which must have 
been recorded, it would seem in the books of Boott &. 
Lowell. Five more came from Mr. James Boott in 1826. 
Respecting the true ownership of these, (the firm of Boott &, 
Lowell being at that time dissolved,) Mr. Lowell may, or may 
not have had means of knowledge. There were then eighty- 
one, in all, held by Mr. Boott in 1826. Mr. Lowell has not 
told us what the books of Boott & Lowell may show as to 
the original ownership of the seventy-six, which remained 
from the original subscriptions. But of the whole eighty- 
one shares, eight were, afterwards, treated by Mr. Boott as 
belonging to his guardianship accounts ; and the remaining 
seventy-three were all either marked, in May, 1831, as prop- 
erty of his father's estate, or transferred by him, in trust, to 



401 

secure his father's estate, including its liability for the guard- 
ianship debt ; and of these seventy-three, seventy-one re-ap- 
pear in the account of 1844, charged at their original par^ 
instead of their higher value in 1831, when they were first 
visibly transferred to the estate. This seems to involve an 
admission that they were all regarded, /rom the beginning, 
as a specific investment for the estate. If so, would not the 
books of Boott & Lowell show it ? Must not Mr. Lowell, 
the accountant of that house, have known the fact ? Or, if 
those books prove the fact to be otherwise, would not Mr. 
Lowell have shown us that ? Had he, then, reason to be- 
lieve, at the time of the loan and pledge in 1827-30, that Mr. 
Boott was the clear owner in his own right of tioenty-jive of 
these shares ? Did he not, at least, know enough to the con- 
trary, respecting both the Merrimack and the Boston stocks, 
to have put him on inquiry ? 

Bat, some one will ask, how is it possible that Mr. Lowell, 
if he had cause of doubt on this point, could, as a prudent 
money lender, have consented to take the risk of lending 
trust money on this security, and, in efiect, of guaranteeing 
the loan ? 

It is not for me to answer this question. It relates entirely 
to motive. My business is with facts. It is somewhat pre- 
mature even for the reader to indulge his curiosity in specu- 
lating upon motives, until he has seen all the facts, which 
the case may bring before him. I do not even mean to assert 
that it is a fact, that Mr. Lowell, at the moment of taking 
these shares, positively knew, or remembered, that they must, 
in whole or in part, be trust property; — especially when, re- 
specting Mr. Boott's affairs, he declares, that, in May, 1831, 
he " knew nothing about them, except from Mr. Brooks him- 
self, and could not, of course, either affirm or deny any rep- 
resentation he [Brooks] might see fit to make on the subject." 
[L. p. 30.] But all these are things for Mr. Lowell to explain.. 
The main evidence lies in his own keeping. Certain evi^ 
dence, only, has come to my knowledge. That I exhibit. 
It tends, if unexplained, to show that Mr. Lowell, when he 
took the stocks in pledge, ought to have knowtt how Mr.. 

51 



402 

Boott stood in relation to them. If he has any evidence to 
the contrary, I shall be glad to judge it fairly. But, at pres- 
ent, upon such evidence as I see and have shown, I mean 
only to say, that the taking of so many shares of these two 
stocks, as the private property of Mr. Boott, with Mr. LowelPs 
means of knowledge respecting their true ownership, seems 
to me to have been a remarkable indiscretion. To borrow 
his own language, " This was, to say the least, exceedingly 
careless." [L. p. 84.] And I must say, that, if these circum- 
stances had been known to me in May, 1831, I should never, 
without some satisfactory explanation, have consented to the 
preservation, or renewal, of Mr. Lowell's supposed lien, by a 
transfer from Mr. Boott, as executor ^ which I assented to only 
from the supposed necessity of the case, and in consequence of 
my belief that Mr. LoAvell had previously taken those shares in 
pledge, without suspicion, or cause of suspicion, that they were 
not Mr. Boott's, in equity and law. Neither should I have as- 
sented to the compromise, which allowed the account of 1844, 
whereby I well understood that the estate's property went to 
pay Mr. LowelPs debt, had I not remained under the same im- 
pression as to the origin of the pledge, and had I not, conse- 
quently, believed that the estate, receiving the shares, ought 
to pay the debt. 

Whatever may be thought on this point, we are now, neces- 
sarily, brought to the conclusion, from Mr. Lowell's own 
showing, connected with the account of 1844, that the seven- 
ty-one shares of Merrimack therein charged at par, and the 
eighteen shares of Boston charged at their subscription price 
of $1150 per share, were regarded by Mr. Boott, originally, 
as purchased for the estate. Mr. Lowell labours to satisfy us 
that the twenty-one shares of Boston, purchased in 1826, at 
^1300, were also purchased for the estate ; although the evi- 
dence leaves us in doubt on that point. The stable, which 
the account says cost $2500, we are told distinctly, was bought 
for the benefit of the estate. [L. p. 86.] But how is this ? 
The whole property, now named, amounts, at these prices, to 
$121,500, all of which, according to that statement, was, at 
the time of the purchases, the estate's money ; — and yet we 



403 

are told, by the account of 1844, that |25,000 of that prop- 
erty was then Mr. Boott's own ; and that this did not arise 
from the fact of his having paid out more than he had re- 
ceived, except to the amount of about $3700 ! 

Leaving these contradictions to be reconciled as well as 
they may, it is now made certain, that sixty-seven of the 
Merrimack shares* and twenty-five of the Boston, if pur- 
chased originally for the estate, were, afterwards, taken to 
Mr. Boott's private account, and pledged to Messrs. Sturgis 
and Lowell for $51,000 of personal loans to him. The ques- 
tion then recurs, at what price could Mr. Boott, rightfully, 
have charged those shares, in an account beginning from the 
discharge of 1833 ? — at which date the shares stood subject 
to those pledges. The Merrimack shares were, then, at about 
par ; the Boston at a great depreciation. At the market prices 
of that day, it has been shown [Ante, p. 380.] that scarcely 
$75,000 of property could have been turned out, clear of Mr. 
Lowell's debt, which was then $46,000. In 1844, though 
the Boston shares continued greatly below their original par, 
the Merrimack shares had attained a considerable advance ; 
but not a sufficient advance to counteract the loss upon the 
Boston shares, compared with their original cost to Mr. Boott. 
Can he claim to charge them all^ Boston and Merrimack, at 
that cost ? 

Now I believe the rule to be, that, since Mr. Boott had 
chosen to take both these stocks from the estate, and to treat 
them as his own, the heirs would have their election, in re- 
spect to each parcel of stock, when afterwards offered to be 
returned to the estate, to reclaim such parcels as they pleased 
at their original cost, and to take the residue at their market 
value at the time of the restoration. I think I formerly 
stated the principle correctly, though Mr. Lowell seems to 
doubt it, [L. p. 68.] that, when a trustee converts distinct 
parcels of the trust property to his own use, whatever is 
gained by rise in value of any one distinct parcel of the prop- 

* To Mr. Sturgis, 42 

To Mr. Lowell, 25 

67 



404 

erty, while so converted, is gained for the trust, and what- 
ever is lost, by the fall of any other distinct parcel of the 
property, is the private loss of the trustee, if the parties, to he 
accounted with, so elect. The gain on the Merrimack stock, 
on this principle, was a gain for the estate, and the loss, by 
the depreciation of the Boston stock, Mr. Boott lost for him- 
self, and had no right, unless by consent, to charge upon the 
estate, by placing the stock there, again, at its original cost. 
The application of this principle to an account, beginning in 
1833, would have been to put the Merrimack shares at par, 
that being their original cost, and the Boston shares at ^725 
each, that being their market value at the time of the making 
of the account, in 1844. But where would Mr. Boott's 
" cash balance," and where would Mr. Lowell's debt, have 
been by that rule ? Either Mr. Lowell must have gone 
wholly unpaid, or the $100,000 trust fund must have been 
minus by nearly $25,000.* It would have operated far more 
unfavourably for Mr. Boott than charging all the stocks, as I 
have done, at their market value in May, 1831 ; which left a 
deficiency of about $17,000 only. [Ante, p. 379.] That went 
upon the principle of considering them, though purchased 
with funds borrowed from the estate, to have been Mr. Boott's 
own property, so long as they stood, undistinguished, in his 
own name, and of considering that they became the estate's 
specific property, when they were first marked as such. 

So much for Mr. Lowell's impregnahility , with an account 
dating from the discharge ! 

Mr. Lowell, however, affects to consider that I formerly 
contended for the principle of charging these stocks to Mr. 
Boott at their market value, not of 1831, but of 1844 ; and 
he professes to proceed, himself, on the principle of c?z5charg- 

* 71 shares of Merrimack at par 71,000 

39 " " Boston at $725 28,725 

Stable 1,500 

101,225 

Mrs. Boott's trust fund 100,000 

Debt to Mr. Lowell 25,000 

125,000 



405 

ing the executor by crediting the stock, purchased at its ac- 
tual cost. In that view he makes the following statement : — 

" Had the opposite principle been adopted, [i. e. crediting the stocks 
at the market value of 1844,] the result would have been as follows : — 
The manufacturing stock, as shown by Mr. Boott's account, 

had cost him $118,000 

The market value of the same shares, as shown by Mr. 

Loring's inventory, was 119,155 

1,155 

That is to say, if Mr. Boott had credited himself with the stock 

on the principle Mr. Brooks seems to indicate, that is, the market 

value, the result would have been more favorable to him than it 

was by $1,155 

As however the stable, which cost him $2500 

was appraised to Mr. Loring at only 1500 

there would have been a deduction of 1000 



155 
So that Mr. Brooks's complaint resolves itself into this, that Mr. 
Boott has credited the estate with $155 more than he ought to have 
done!" (L. p. 67,68.) 

This is another strange instance of misstatement and mis- 
calculation, for a man of immaculate accuracy in such 
matters.. 

It is true that the market value of the stocks, in 1844, " as 
shown by Mr. Loring's inventory," was as Mr. Lowell 
states it, $119,155* 

But the cost of the same stocks to Mr. Boott, " as 
shown by Mr. Boott's account," (meaning the 
probate account of Mr. Lowell's own making,) 
instead of being $118,000, as he above states, 
was $119,000, which appears as follows : — 
"39 shares in the Boston Manufac- 
turing Company ; 

* The statement of the inventory [B. App. p. 55.] is as follows : — 
"Thirty-nine shares in the Boston Manufacturing Company, at $725 each, $28,275 
Seventy-one shares in the Merrimack Manufacturing Company at $1280 

each, 90,880" 



These sums, added, amount to 119,155 



406 

Brought over, market value, $119,155 

Of 18 shares, cost $1150 each $20,700 

21 shares cost $1300 each 27,300 

48,000 
71 shares in the Merrimack Manufac- 
turing Company cost 71,000 

119,000 

[See account, L. p. 39. Also, B. App. p. 44.] 

Difference, (instead of 1155,) 155 

Hence, if Mr. Boott had credited himself with the property 
at its market value in 1844, instead of its cost, it would have 
made a difference in his favour, so far as regards the stock, 
alone, of only $155, instead of $1155, as Mr. Lowell so tri- 
umphantly proclaims. But, unfortunately, this little differ- 
ence is quite enough to turn the argument the other way ; 
for Mr. Lowell admits, above, that on the principle of market 
value in 1844, a deduction of $1000, from the cost of the 
stable, compared with its saleable price, must be offset against 
the supposed gain of $1155 in the market value of the stocks, 
compared with their original cost. His statement is : gain 
to the estate, by charging the stocks at less than their market 
value, * $1155 

less loss, by charging the stable at more than its 

market value, 1000 

Net gain to the estate, 155 



But the true statement is ; loss to the estate, by 
charging the stable at more than its market 
value, 1000 

less gain to the estate, by charging the stocks at 

less than their market value, 155 



Net loss to the estate, 845 

So that, had my complaint in truth been that, which Mr. 
Lowell falsely assumes, instead of resolving itself " into this, 
that Mr. Boott has credited the estate with $155 more than he 
ought to have done," it would resolve itself, on Mr. Lowell's 



407 

showing, (correcting his misstatement,) into this^ that Mr. 
Boott has credited the estate with $845 less than he ought 
to have done ! * 

The misfortune, here, is, that Mr. Lowell, in adding up the 
costs of the stocks, has missed, (or rather made^) a figure ; — 
which, though it be but a unit, happens, by position, to 
amount to $1000. Or, to put the case more in his own 
striking way, he has magnified a little result of $155 by 
about 750 per cent ! A degree of inaccuracy, scarcely worth 
noticing, perhaps, but for the cariosity of comparing the fact 
with some of the same gentleman's remarks, when, by anoth- 
er and more extraordinary blunder of his own, he supposed 
that a sum of $2500 had grown into one of $10,000, by be- 
ing " refracted through the prism of Mr. Brooks's memory ! " 
[Ante, Ch. 6.] 

Now is it not truly wonderful, — would it not be absolutely 
incredible, if it were not all in plain black and white before 
us, — that a gentleman, occupying Mr. Lowell's position, 
should have had the effrontery to publish a book, so arrogant, 
so self-assuming, so denunciatory, so contemptuous, as this 
" Reply " is, in temper and tone, pretending to hold me up to 
absolute ridicule for alleged inaccuracies and errors, which are 
mostly of its author's own manufacture, while he himself has 
been guilty of so many, and such, oversights and mistakes as 
have now been pointed out, descending even to the simplest 
processes of simple arithmetic ? Or, can it be, that he has, 
really, presumed upon the belief, (a belief, which, I am sorry to 
say, the event proves to have been tolerably well founded, ) that 
most of his readers would throw themselves, with a confidence 
amounting to absolute self-abandonment, upon statements of 
this nature, coming from such authority, provided they were 
only promulgated with a degree of " audacity," which " defies 

* Cost of stocks, by the account, as above - - - $119,000 
" " stable, by do. 2,500 



Total cost, -ndth which the estate is charged, 121,500 
Market value of stocks, as by inventory, - - $119,155 

" " stable, by do. - - - - 1,500 120,655 

Excess of cost above market value, 845 



408 

all competition ?" Did he, really, trust to the chance^ that 
readers, suspecting nothing, would never, of themselves, detect 
falsehoods so gross and palpable ; and that I should never 
have the courage " to follow out these misrepresentations, step 
by step," [L. p. 85.] in the pains-taking method, which their 
nature requires, for the purpose of exposing them to the ap- 
prehension of those, who would not look for themselves ? 
Will the reader be charitable enough to believe, that the 
author of the ^' Reply" has, always^ erred through accident 
and heedlessness ? Or will he suspect that he has ventured 
to play the desperate game above suggested ? Those, who 
have the patience to read my volume through, will at least 
have the means of forming an opinion. 



CHAPTER XL. 



A CHARGE AGAINST ME OF MISREPRESENTATION, OR MISTAKE, IN 
MATTERS SAID TO HAVE BEEN DECIDED BY THE SUPREME JUDI- 
CIAL COURT. 

In connexion with the subject of the last chapter, I may 
properly notice certain comments on a sentence or two in my 
former pamphlet, deserving, in Mr. Lowell's opinion of '' serious 
animadversion." [L. p. 72.] The passage was^tfeis : — 

" Among the causes, it should be remembered, which went to bring 
down the saleable value of shares in the Boston Manufacturing Com- 
pany from SI 300, in 1826, to $725, at the date of the rendition of this 
account, was the fact, that the company had sold off a part of its fixed 
property, and divided the proceeds, which was a real reduction of 
capital. Yet this dividend, which really represented capital, stands 
nowhere in the account, unless it was treated as income, and included 
in the credit of near $275,000 paid ' to, or for account and by order 
of, the widow.'" (B. p. 120.) 

Mr. Lowell begins : — 



409 

" Here Mr. Brooks is wrong, as usual, both in his facts 
and his law ;" and he, thereupon, proceeds to state, that the 
extra dividend in question was declared ''from the profits 
arising from making the machinery for the first Merrimack 
mill, and from a sum of $75,000, paid to the Boston Com- 
fjany by the Merrimack Company, for the transfer of their 
patent rights and of Mr. Moody's services." [L. p. 73.] 

This transfer is the same, which is said to have been the 
occasion of the arrangement before mentioned, [Ante, p. 391.] 
whereby the proprietors in the two companies, with the view 
of equalizing their interests, exchanged shares at a difference 
of thirty per cent, in favour of the Boston Manufacturing Com- 
pany. Reference is then made to the opinion of the Supreme 
Judicial Court, in the case of Mr. McLean's will, as a decision 
directly in point. And thereupon Mr. Lowell remarks : — 

" This ignorance of a prominent decision of our Supreme Court, as 
well as the numerous instances of disingenuousness and unfair inferen- 
ces with which this pamphlet abounds, convince me that its authorship 
should not be attributed, as is popularly done, tooneof tlie counsel of 
Mr. Brooks, a gentleman who enjoys the reputation alike of manly 
fair dealing, and of acuteness and learning in his profession." [L. p. 
74.] 

This compliment seems not to be intended for me. I 
might well let it pass, therefore, with an expression of sur- 
prise, that Mr. Lowell should commit so vulgar an error as to 
confound counsel and client, were it not for the illustration, 
it affords, of his singular tendency to mistake his own assump- 
tions for indisputable facts, even while he is correcting others 
for alleged errors of the same kind. 

In the first place, (though the authorship of a pamphlet has 
not much to do with its merits.) the truth is, that the original 
statement of my case was not only wholly written by myself, 
but actually printed, in proof copies, for the purpose of sub- 
mitting it to two or three friends for consideration and advice, 
before a word of it was seen by either of my counsel. With 
the aid of counsel, it was, afterwards, modified, enlarged, and 
re-arranged, for the purpose of making my view of the case, 
more plain and intelligible to persons less familiar with the 

62 



410 

facts than Mr. Lowell and myself. But, whatever obligations 
I may owe to counsel, for amending the imperfections of my 
original draft, the facts, which I assert, and the inferences, 
whether fair or unfair, which are unfavourable to Mr. Lowell, 
and all the '^ petty insinuations," which he elsewhere com- 
plains of, [L. p. 20.] I may safely be permitted to claim as 
my own. 

In the next place, it so happens, that in one of my conferen- 
ces with counsel, the very decision, mentioned by Mr. Lowell, 
was particularly cited and referred to. I was, as it happen- 
ed, not ignorant of that case myself Being then a member 
of the bar, I happened to be present when the opinion was 
delivered, and recollect the considerable sensation, that it oc- 
casioned at the time. So much for the assumptions. 

Now as to the mistakes. Concerning the details of the ac- 
tual arrangements between the two companies, in 1823, Mr. 
Lowell, who was at that time the treasurer of one of them, 
and a director, I believe, in both, is likely to be better inform- 
ed than I am. I may have been in error myself, and may 
have misled my counsel, in stating so broadly, as I did, that 
the Boston Manufacturing Company ''had sold off a part of 
lis fixed property ^ and divided the proceeds ; " though, but for 
an expression of the court, in the course of the opinion refer- 
red to, which might seem to intimate otherwise, I should con- 
fess myself unable to see, now, why the ownership of patent 
rights, affixed to machiyiery used in manufacturing, is not as 
much a part of the capital, employed in the business, as the 
machinery itself. 

When the case was referred to, my counsel were not in- 
formed of the fact, if it be a fact, that the particular dividend, 
which I spoke of as a dividend of " fixed property," was the 
same, or one arising from the same source, with a dividend, 
which is mentioned, among many other things, in the discus- 
sions of that case. The case was looked at, of course, for its 
legal principles, and not for mere evidence of a particular ex- 
trinsic fact, which I stated to be a fact. If I was really mis- 
taken, in that, as Mr. Lowell asserts, the reader will presently 
see that a majority of the stockholders in the Boston Manu- 



411 

facturing Company, laboured under the same mistake of sup- 
posing their capital reduced, and passed a vote founded upon 
it, which, I believe Mr. Lowell himself recommended. 

But, from the manner, in which Mr. Lowell points to the 
decision of the court, one would think it settled the identical 
matter, in issue between us. Every lawyer, who examines the 
case, will see that it does no such thing. One question, 
among many, it is true, was, whether a certain dividend of the 
Boston Manufacturing Company, (which Mr. Lowell says is 
the same I referred to,) was to go to a widow, who had a cer* 
tain interest in the property, during life, or to a residuary fund, 
given to Harvard College and the Massachusetts General Hos- 
pital, after her decease. That question turned, of course, 
upon the intention of Mr. McLean, as it was to be gathered 
from the circumstances, under the language of his will, which, 
as the com't say, speaks of ^^pr^qfits, income, divid end s,^^ with- 
out exception, as payable to the widow -* and, accordingly, it 
is decided, that a special dividend, arising, in part, from the 
proceeds of a sale of ^' patent rights and patterns for castings," 
and " placed to the account of profit and loss" by the compa- 
ny,! was rightfully paid to the widow, according to the inten- 
tion of that will, instead of being kept as an accumulation, for 
the benefit of the strangers, who were to come after her. But 
the case, it will be seen, settles no general principle, applica- 
ble to all wills and all extra dividends ; and it settles nothing 
applicable to the case under the will of Mr. Boott, which was 
all I had to deal with. 

The will of Mr. Boott, at first, provided, simply, that 
$100,000 should be '^placed out at interest ;" "the interest 
money on which, as it shall arise, I give to my said wife ;" 
and (after other provisions, not material to the present point,) 
'' the residue of the above mentioned property I give to m^y 
children^ [B. App. p. 3.] Afterwards, by a codicil, the ex- 
ecutors were authorized to invest the $100,000 ''in such 
stocks, or mortgages, as shall appear best to them ;" and, in 
that connexion, " the interest money, as it accrues," is again 

* 9 Pickering's Reports, p. 458. 
t Id. p. 463. 



412 



spoken of. [B. App. p. 8.] Not one word, either of the will, 
or of the codicil, can be deemed to enlarge, or modify, the 
effect of the language, first used, respecting the distribution 
of principal and interest between the widow and the children, 
or to alter their relative rights, further than such alteration of 
rights must, necessarily, flow from the simple permission, thus 
given by the codicil, to invest in stocks. The question, then, 
for the lawyers to determine, is, whether, under this will, a 
dividend, not of ordinary income, but proceeding from a sale 
of property used for the business^ out of which the ordinary 
incojne had previously, in part, accrued, was intended by the 
testator to be classed as " interest money, ^'' and to be paid, as 
such, to the widow. I hold not, with all deference to better 
judgement, when it shall be cited. As yet, nothing has been 
cited, which touches that question. 

It was not mj intention, however, in the paragraph, Avhich 
calls forth Mr. Lowell's '' serious animadversion," to give an 
opinion, or provoke a discussion, on an abstract question of 
law. When I called such a dividend, as I supposed to have 
been made, '' a real reduction of capital," I was looking at 
the matter, as one of common justice and right accounting, 
with reference to this particular will, and to facts, which, cer- 
tainly, were not before the court, in the case Mr. Lowell al- 
ludes to. Mr. Boott's account does not even show whether 
the dividend in question has been paid, or credited, to any 
body. It cannot even be inferred that it has, except on the 
hypothesis that it may have been included in the lumping 
credit of near ^275,000, for ^^ income paid to, or for account 
and by order of, the widow ;" and if so, it seemed to me, 
that, under the provisions of Mr. Boott's will, such a divi- 
dend, not being in any sense '' interest money," nor repre- 
senting ordinary income, properly belonged to the children, 
and not to the widow, even on the most liberal construction 
of Mr. Boott's intention towards his widow. But, besides the 
marked difference in the two wills, several other important 
facts, not before the court in the case cited, now appear, which 
go to show, that the payment of such a dividend to Mrs. 



413 

Boott, if it ever was paid to her, caused a substantial reduc- 
tion of the capital of the trust fund. 

The arrangements and transfers of property between the 
two companies, which consisted mainly of the same individ- 
uals, were such, as Mr. Lowell tells us, [L. p. 70.] that, to do 
complete justice, it was thought necessary, not only that a 
sum of money should be paid by one corporation to the other, 
but that shares should be exchanged, by the individual cor- 
porators, so as to give to each individual an equal number of 
shares in each company ; and the stockholder of the Boston 
Company, who parted with a share of that stock, and received 
in exchange a share of the Merrimack stock, received with it, 
in money, thirty per cent, of the par, for difference of value. 
That thirty per cent., it would seem, was to indemnify the 
individual, more completely, for the permanent loss he was 
expected to sustain, as a stockholder of the Boston Manufac- 
turing Company, by the transfer of a profitable branch of its 
business, together Avith the property used in that business, to 
the Merrimack Manufacturing Company. The direct money 
payment, by one corporation to the other, was but a small 
part of the consideration for that, Avhich was transferred. 

2. The shares of the Boston Manufacturing Company, 
which had, before, been freely bought and sold at ^1500 a 
share, [L. pp. 70, 71.] became, thereby, in conjunction with 
other causes, permanently reduced in value more than fifty 
per cent. These shares fell, immediately after the arrange- 
ment, and contirmed to fall, until, instead of ^1500, the mar- 
ket price has sometimes been as low as five or six hundred 
dollars a share. A certificate, printed above, [Ante. p. 248.] 
fixes the price in August, 1830, at $666 67 ; and in Novem- 
ber, 1844, Avhen manufacturing stocks were unusually high, 
we find them appraised at f 725. [B. App. Bo.] Merrimack 
shares, at the same time, were appraised at %, 1280 ; though 
the original par of each was the same, namely, $1000. 

3. Not only has this permanent change occurred in the 
market value, but, in order to conform to a stubborn fact, the 
nominal capital of the Boston Manufacturing Company was 
at length, (long after the decision upon Mr. McLean's will,) 



414 

cut down, by a formal vote, from $600,000 to $450,000 ; 
whereby, without any new division of capital, the nominal 
par of a share was reduced from $1000 to $750. This fact, 
which is very notorious, happened while I was myself presi- 
dent of that corporation ; and, although I had no such con- 
nexion with its affairs, in 1823, as to know, of my own 
knowledge, precisely, what the arrangements with the Mer- 
rimack Manufacturing Company then were, I do know, that, 
when the above-mentioned reduction of capital was under 
consideration, several years after, the propriety of such a 
measure was urged, at the time, by those who knew more 
than I did of the former transactions, upo7i the ground of this 
very transfer of the machine shop, with its properties and 
business, to the Merrimack Company, which had taken place 
in 1823, and which is the arrangement spoken of by Mr. 
Lowell. It can no longer be said, therefore, as was said 
in the course of the opinion of the Supreme Court, cited by 
Mr. Lowell, that the properties, sold by the Boston Manufac- 
turing Company, could not be considered to have been a part 
of its capital stock, for the reason that '' we have seen no 
evidence that they were ever treated as such by the proprie- 
tors." * 

The question then recurs, with these new facts before us, 
(perfectly well known to Mr. Lowell, but carefully unnoticed 
by him,) whether the whole of the money dividend, which 
arose out of those unusual transactions, (and which was a 
part of the consideration of a transfer so vitally affecting the 
intrinsic value of the stock, that it led, at last, to a formal 
reduction of the nominal capital by twenty-five per cent.) 
ought to have been paid, by a trustee under the will of Mr. 
Boott, senior, to his widow, as "interest money," (according 
to the language of the will,) or, "income," (according to the 
language of the account,) or, whether it ought not, rather, to 
have been charged in the executor's account, (which claimed 
allowances of $1150 and $1300 for the cost of these shares, 
then worth only ^725,) as a partial restoration of so much 

*■ 9 Pickering's Reports, p. 463. 



415 

of the original capital, so invested, and so diminished by the 
effect of that transfer ? What has the decision in the case of 
Mr. McLean's will, under a different state of facts, to do with 
this question ? Why does Mr. Lowell cite it, as a case in 
point, without disclosing the altered state of facts, with 
which he is perfectly familiar ? And what becomes of the 
value, or safety, of a reversionary interest, under a will, 
which intends to provide nothing but a fair and ordinary hi- 
come for the annuitant, and to preserve and secure the capi- 
tal, unimpaired, for the reversioner, if the trust fund may be 
thus invested, and dividends, from such sources, destroying 
the intrinsic value of the stock, may be paid away under the 
name of '' interest money?" 

I cannot perceive, therefore, that I have any material error 
to correct in my former statement on this subject. But 
whether I have, or not, and whether I am usually right or 
wrong, either in facts or law, I believe my readers will agree 
with me in this ; — that Mr. Boott's account, as drawn up by 
Mr. Lowell, ought to have stated and shown what he did 
with that extra dividend, accruing on the eighteen shares, 
which he held at the time it was made ; — that it ought, also, 
to have shown, whether, in the individual transactions be- 
tween himself and Mr. Kirk Boott, Avhereby Mr. J. Wright 
Boott became the owner of twenty-one shares, in 1826, the 
estate got its equivalent for the purchase, at that date, of those 
shares at $1300 each, when they were worth only $900 ; — 
and that it ought, also, to show, to whom the dividends on 
those twenty-one shares, including all extra dividends in 
question, went, from 1823 to 1826, during which time the 
shares were held by Mr. Kirk Boott. About all these mat- 
ters, we are left just as much in the dark, after Mr. Lowell's 
explanations, as we were on the face of the account. 



416 



CHAPTER XLI. 

MR. KIRK BOOTt's LETTER OF MAY 10, 1833. POSITION OF THE 
TRUST FUND AT THAT TIME. 

Having, in the last chapter, disposed of another false issue, 
thrown in the way by Mr. Lowell, I may now return to the 
state of affairs, at the time of the release, given by most of 
the heirs to Mr. Boott, in April, 1833. 

We left him, in May, 1831, urged, in the strongest possible 
manner, to state and settle his family accounts ; but preferring 
to throw up his Suffolk agency, and the proposed mission to 
England. [Ante, Ch. 33, Ch. 34.] We left his friends, Mr. 
Kirk Boott, Mr. Jackson, Mr. Lowell, and myself, solicitous 
to bring about a general settlement of all subjects of embar- 
rassment, and to help him into some new and profitable line 
of business. [Ante, Ch. 34.] So far as his difficulties in 
connexion with Lyman &o Ralston stood in the way, I have 
shown that they were removed by the settlement, effected, 
through Mr. Lowell, in September, 1831. [Ante, Ch. 35.] 
So far as he may have felt hampered by debts to his own fami- 
ly, which he could never hope to pay, I have shown that he 
was discharged in April, 1833, by every heir in this country, 
who had an interest in the question, from all liability for any 
thing beyond the particular trust funds, in which others, be- 
sides the general heirs, had an interest. [Ante, p. 373.] So 
much of his father's estate as those trust funds amounted to, 
it was hoped that he might, eventually, make good, by en- 
gaging in some new pursuit, and earning the means of pay- 
ing off, gradually, his private incumbances upon them. 

Respecting the release, Mr. Lowell says : — 

" This was equivalent to an act of amnesty for the past, so far as there 
was any thing to forgive, and a pledge of contidence for the future. If 
any movement was to be made to inquire into the past, it sliould have 
been made then ; if any action was meditated for a change of trustee, 
then was the moment to make it." [L. p. 195.] 



417 

I have already explained the motives which led Mr. Kirk 
Boott and myself to acquiesce, relactantly. in a state of things, 
which could not be helped, nor moved in without mischief 
to all concerned ; and I have alluded to the altered position 
of aftairs, when a removal from the trust was effected under 
the compromise of 1844, — a subject, to which I shall have 
occasion to return. That the position of the trust fund, after 
the release of April, 1833, was viewed by Mr. Kirk Boott as 
it was by myself, and that there was the most entire har- 
mony of action and feeling between us, on this pahiful sub- 
ject, appears by his letter, printed below. 

LETTER FROM Mb. KIRK BOOTT to E. BROOKS. 

" Lowell, May 10, 1833. 
« My Dear Sir : 

"After I saw you on 'Change, this morning, my mother requested 
me not to mention, to any one, tlie interview I had with her on Wed- 
nesday evening, and I will therefore thank you to forget what I com- 
municated. 

I have some misgivings that if I meddle at all, I may do more 
harm than good ; and I am not sure that any of the parties exactly 
know what they would be at. If I can put into shape what I feel, so 
as to incur little risk ol giving offence, I think I shall write to J. W. B. ; 
but I am very sensible how ticllish an affair this is. If you can give 
me the benefit of your advice, you may depend upon it, I can keep it 
to myself. I still think the best thing mother can do, is to leave the 
house in the Square, and take a smaller one. And I am satisfied, if 
it should be so considered by others, she would consent. I hav^e some 
thoughts of going down on Sunday ; in which case, I hope to be able 
to see you in the evening. 

Yours truly, 

KIRK BOOTT." 

This ''contemporaneous exposition" shows two things, 
conclusively, let Mr. Lowell say what he will to the con- 
trary: — 1. That Mr. Kirk Boott thought his mother's pecun- 
iary condition so reduced, that she ought '' to leave the 
house in the square, and take a smaller one." This alludes 
to a particular provision of his father's will, Avhich empow- 
ered the executor, with the consent of the widow, to raise a 
new fund for her benefit, by selling the family mansion in 

53 



418 • 

Bowdoin-Square, buying a smaller house with part of the 
proceeds, and investing the surplus, arising from the sale, so 
that she might receive an income from it. This was to be 
done, (in the language of the will,) 'Mf, from any accident, 
the money^ which is to be laid out and held in trust to pro- 
cure her an income for her support, should suffer loss so as 
not to be sufficient for her comfortable support.''^ [B. App. 
p. 9.] Mr. Kirk Boott thought, in 1833, that this case had 
occmTed, and ought to be acted upon, — as the letter shows. 

2. It shows, besides, the peculiarities, I speak of, in Mr. J. 
Wright Boott's character, which made him totally impracti- 
cable, and unapproachable, even by such a brother, touching 
his administration of the family property. Mr. Kirk Boott 
feared, that, if he meddled at all, in a delicate matter then 
causing uneasiness, and connected with Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
affairs, it might " do more harm than good." He dared not 
enter into a free conversation on the subject with his brother, 
knowing that such interference would be taken as an offence. 
He was sensible '' how ticklish an affair " it v/as, even to 
write to him about it, in the most guarded manner; especially, 
after what he had previously written, as we have seen, with- 
out effect. 

This letter, alone, completely puts to the rout a host of 
Mr. Lowell's statements, arguments and suggestions. Was 
Mrs. Boott's trust fund, really, whole and safe, as he pretends, 
when Mr. Kirk Boott thought the time had come for the ex- 
ecutor, (who had just been released from all present claims of 
his brothers and sisters,) to carry into effect the clause of the 
will, above cited, in order to make a new provision for his 
mother's " comfortable support " ? Did he doubt such mal- 
administration of these trust funds, without dishonesty of in- 
tention, as I have described, even while he thought his 
brother a safe and competent person to be employed in a dif- 
ferent kind of agency ? Does he not bear direct testimony to 
some of the circumstances, which made it impossible, without 
a rupture, to get a settlement of accounts ? Does he not 
show, distinctly, that singularity of character, in Mr. J. Wright 
Boott, which caused his attached and confiding relatives to 



419 

permit him to keep their interests wrapped up, imaccomited 
for, ill his own impenetrable reserve and mystery? Was Mr. 
Kirk Boott, let me ask, '' blinded by excited feelings of ani- 
mosity," as Mr. Lowell says I am, [L. p. 106.] when he took 
this view of affairs? Can it be true, as Mr. Lowell pretends, 
that, at the time of the release, the heirs were indebted to 
Mr. J. Wright Boott, for a small over-advance of three or 
four thousand dollars, instead of his being indebted to them 
in a much larger sum? Was it '' that they might not even 
know the sacrifice he had thus made on their behalf," that 
''he put off the settlement of his accounts"? [L. p. 5S.] 
For so Mr. Lowell pretends to explain the fact, — suggesting, 
that, " when, in 1833, the heirs came forward and tendered 
to him a discharge in full, he was touched by this mark of 
their affection and confidence " ; and " accepted the dis- 
charge, mentally resolving'''' (for Mr. Lowell assumes to 
know even Mr. Boott's secret thoughts, when occasion re- 
quires it,) '' never to demand of them any restitution." [L. 
p. 58.] 

Against all this, the facts, which have now been shown, 
speak, with sufficient distinctness. The trust fund, for the 
support of Mrs. Boott, was lamentably deficient ; and could 
only be restored through the large income from the manufac- 
turing stocks, in which it was invested, (if they could be 
preserved,) combined with prudent management, economy of 
expenditure, and the acquisition, by Mr. J. Wright Boott, of 
new means to pay off his private debts, through some profit- 
able employment. The heirs believed, at least, (so much, 
Mr. Lowell is obliged tacitly to admit, in accounting for the 
discharge,) that more was due to them than they had yet 
received. Notwithstanding the caution of Mr. Kirk Boott 
and myself to make no unnecessary disclosures, that might 
harm Mr. Boott, it was found that — 



" The disastrous result of the business at the Mill Dam had at last 
become matter of notoriety. It had come to be understood in the 
family, that he had been a great loser, and that property had been 
lost, in \vhich the heirs of his father's estate had an interest, though 
the extent of the calamity was known only to Mr. Kirk Boott and 



420 

myself. It was apparent, or at least it was believed, that the fact of 
his indebtedness to the heirs, among other things, preyed heavily 
upon him. Every member of the family felt great sympathy for him 
under the misfortune. He was himself most solicitous to get relieved 
from some part of his burden." [B. p. 45.] 

Those were the circumstances, as I formerly stated them, 
under which Mr. Kirk Boott and myself, hoping to place Mr. 
J. Wright Boott in a position to retrieve his affairs, proposed 
to, and obtained from, the other heirs, the release, of April, 
1833, — every heir understanding that he freely gave up all 
that was then due to him, and Mr. William Boott, in particu- 
lar, understanding, (because his brother Wright had told him 
so,) that the right, he gave up, represented $20,000. The 
reader may now compare the probability of Mr. Lowell's 
statement, and of mine, in this part of the history. He may 
judge, for himself, whether I have been guilty of any exag- 
geration, and whether it is I, or Mr. Lowell, who misrepre- 
sents the realities of the case. 



CHAPTER XLII. 

POSITION OF MR. BOOTT, AND OF THE TRUST FUND, AND OF THE 
DEBT TO MR. LOWELL, AFTER THE SETTLEMENT OF THE 
GUARDIANSHIP ACCOUNTS, IN 1835. 

The only other important event, which occurred, to alter 
Mr. J. -Wright Boott's pecuniary condition, was a settlement 
with his wards, in January, 1835. 

This makes another convenient resting place, from which 
we may see, v/ith considerable exactness, how he, and the 
family trust fund, stood. 

I have heretofore shown, that all the property, put in trust 



421 

in May, 1831, for the purpose of securing the guardianship 
debts and the principal annuity fund, was, at its then value, 
insufficient to pay those debts, and form that fund, by more 
than $50,000. [Ante, p. 353.] In the mean time, there had 
accrued, upon the manufacturing stocks, (one hundred and 
twelve shares of Merrimack and Boston together,*) nearly 
four years income. This may be set down at an average of 
at least ten per cent, per annum, making an aggregate, for the 
period from May, 1831, to January, 1835, of about $40,000.1 
Of this sum, not more than one half was, probably, taken up 
by Mrs. Boott, in the support of her establishment ; for she 
lived, at that time, with rigid economy. The other half, say 
$20,000, was left free, and capable of being applied by Mr. 
Boott to the payment of interest, and the extinguishment of 
some part of the principal of his debts. Whether it Avas so 
applied, or not, we shall presently see. 

I have shown, that, in November, 1831, Mr. Boott reduced 
his debt to ]\Ir. Lowell, from $30,000 to $25,000, by a partial 
payment, probably from the cash received out of the sale to 
Lyman & Ralston, [Ante, p. 359.] Mr. Lowell has shown, 
that the debt to Mr. Stm-gis, of $21,000, was, soon after, 
assigned to him, Mr. Lowell. [L. p. 96.] Thus the total 
debt to Mr. Lowell became $46,000 ; at, which, he says, it 

* There is a slight seeming confusion as to the exact number of these shares, 
when spoken of at different dates, arising thus : Mr. Boott's memorandum of 
1830, which intended to embrace all the property, except that which he held for 
the E. Boott family, enumerates one hundred and eleven. In 1831, ninety- two 
shares received the executor's mark, and twenty more, instead of nineteen, were 
transferred to me in trust : and these twenty were transferred by me, after the 
settlement of the guardianship accounts, to Mr. Boott, as executor, agreeably to 
the provisions of the trust. This made one hundred and twelve which he admitted 
to have come to him, as executor. Two of these he sold, in 1837 ; [B. App. p. 31.] 
and one hundred and ten appear in the probate accounts, of 1844. 

t The actual dividends, between May 22, 1831, and Jan. 1, 1835, were, I 
find, $450 upon each share of Merrimack, and $230 upon each share of Boston. 
The whole number of the former was seventy-three ; namely, forty-two pledged 
to Mr. Sturgis, tAventy-five pledged to Mr. Lowell, and six conveyed in trust to 
me. Of the latter, there were twenty-five pledged to Mr. Lowell, and fourteen 
conveyed in trust to me ; in all, thirty-nine. Hence, the reader will perceive, that 
the exact amount of the dividends, in that period, v*'as $41,820. 



422 

stood " after January, 1834 ;" [L. p. 97.] how long after, he 
does not tell us. Now it may have been increased, after 
January, 1834, and I believe was ; but I think it certain, 
that the debt could not have been diminished, until after the 
settlement of the guardianship accounts, early in 1835 ; for 
that settlement demanded all Mr. Boott's cash resources. 

The interest on the debts of $30,000 and $J2 1,000 to Messrs. 
Lowell and Sturgis, from May to November, 1831, and on 
the debt of $46,000 to Mr. Lowell from November, 1831, to 
the early part of 1835, must have amounted to near $10,000. 
This, being paid out of the dividends on the pledged stocks, 
would have left, after allowing $20,000 for Mrs. Boott's 
expenditure, about $10,000 of the unexpended income from 
all the stocks, capable of being applied to the guardian- 
ship debt. The collections, made by me, from the property 
I held in trust under the assignment to me of May 23, 1831, 
(exclusive of the dividends from manufacturing stock, already 
allowed for above,) were, for principal and interest on Lilly's 
note, about $5200, as the receipts show. [B. App. 26-8.] 
From these two sources, then, (my collections, and the unex- 
pended income of the manufacturing stocks,) there was a 
fund of about $15,000, applicable to the gradual reduction of 
the guardianship debt. 

The probate accounts show, that Mr. Boott had subscribed, 
for account of his wards, to the Lowell Railroad, and the 
Lawrence Manufacturing Company; and that the assess- 
ments, paid by him upon these shares, prior to the settlement 
of the accounts, had amounted, in the three last years, to 
about $11,000.* On two of the accounts there was, also, 
during the same period, an investment of $10,000 in stock of 
the National Insurance Company ; and the cash paid over, at 
the final settlement, on all the accounts, appears to have ex- 
ceeded $15,000. 

=^ Assessments paid on nine shares of Lawrence Manufacturing 

Company, were $900 per share, $8100 

Assessments paid on eight shares of Boston and Lowell Railroad, 
were $400 per share, 3200 

11,300 



To effect so large a payment to the wards, in January, or 
February, 1835, it is plain that moneys must have been bor- 
rowed. This we shall see by looking back to the state of 
the debt in 1831, and to the means applicable to its reduction. 

The ^vliole guardianship debt, principal and interest, had 
stood, in 1831, (immediately before the partial payment 
to one of the wards, who was married in that year,) at 
about, [Ante, p. 235.] S46,500 

The principal assets applicable to its reduc- 
tion, before the final settlement in 1835, 
are shown to have been, 1. The proceeds 
of the store, $16,000 

2. The cash proceeds from the sale of the 

foundry, less $5000 paid to Mr. Lowell, 2,600 

We may now add, 1. Dividends from manufac- 
turing stock, beyond Mrs. Boott's estimated 
expenditure, and deducting interest paid to 
Messrs. Sturgis and Lowell, say 10,000 

2. Collections made by me from Lilly, 5,200 



This leaves, still to be raised, in January, 
1835, about 

And to this must be added the further bal- 
ance of interest, which had meanwhile 
accrued, (between 1831 and 1835,) on the 
guardianship accounts, amounting, accord- 
ing to Mr. Tyler, to about 



38,800 



1,100 



13,800 



Now how could this money have been raised? None of 
the manufacturing stock appears to have been sold, at any 
time, after 1831, except two shares of Merrimack; and they 
were not sold till 1837. [B. App. p. 31.] Lilly's note and 
mortgage, which I surrendered to Mr. Boott at or about the 
time of the settlement, was not sold to Mr. Welch, until 
October, 1835, — that is, nine months after the settlement. 
[Ante, p. 290.] 

The necessary inference is, that, to effect the settlement 
with the wards, some new temporary loan must have been 
made, the amount of which can only be guessed by a tolera- 
ble approximation. How and with whom, and on what se- 



424 

curity. this was effected, Mr. Lowell's accounts with Mr. Boott 
might probably explain ; and the fact, if explained, might have 
some farther bearing on the question of Mr. Lowell's lien on 
the manufacturing stocks, in 1844, as against the estate. With 
seventy-one shares of these manufacturing stocks in his hands, 
estimated at the prices of 1835, Mr. Lowell, if he chose to 
treat them as the property of Mr. Boott, might very well 
have made all the further advance that was required. But, on 
these matters, the " Reply" still leaves us " groping about in 
utter darkness and ignorance." [L. p. 72.] 

A large part of Lilly's note, however, appears to have been 
eventually realized, as well as the value of the two shares of 
Merrimack, sold by Mr. Boott, as executor, in 1837, [B. App. 
p. 31.] although no such transaction appears in that probate 
account of 1844, which Mr. Lowell says is a complete 3.ccount 
of all the executor's dealings.* If a temporary loan was made, 
as I conjecture, in 1835, to enable Mr. Boott to settle with his 
wards, the above mentioned means, when they accrued, con- 
tributed to pay it off. We may, therefore, well enough view 
the collections from these sources as if they had gone, at once, 
and directly, towards the payment of the guardianship debt, 
instead of reaching it through the medium of a temporary loan. 
This view is taken for the single purpose of estimating Mr. 
Boott's position, and that of the trust fund, after the guard- 
ianship debt was finally paid. And the case was simply this. 
There remained, in 1835, no property of Mr. Boott standing 
in his own private name. There did remain standing in his 
name as executor, and in the name of Mr. Lowell, his pledgee, 
the same property, which appears in the probate account of 
1844. This property stood subject to the pledge to Mr. 
Lowell, for a debt, which was then, by his own admission, 
at least $46,000 ; and, I believe, was in fact considerably 

=^ I do not count, as a sale of stock, the twenty-three shares of jiew stock, issued 
to Mr. Boott as executor, in November, 1838, and immediately sold by him : [B. 
App. p. 31.] because this was a species of dividend, and might, perhaj^s, have 
been reckoned as income. If so, it may have been included in the lumping debit 
and credit of $274,686 36. And it may not. Who knows ? — except Mr. Lowell. 
It certainly does not appear in the account in any other way. Yet this is an item 
of $23,000, or more ; and I, an heir, am, to this day in doubt about it ! 



425 



larger, in consequence of some further temporary advance. 
But, to avoid conjectural statements, as far as possible, I take 
the debt as he himself has admitted it to have been, "after 
January, 1834" [L. p. 97.] 
This whole property, at its value in May, 1831, has 

been shown [Ante, p. 379.] to have been about $111,000 
If Mr. Lowell's debt is to be paid by the property, 

taken at that valuation, it subtracts 46,000 



The clear balance left for the trust fund, was, 

in that case, only 65,000 

If, on the other hand, the manufacturing shares and 
the stable, be taken, as Mr. Lowell contends they 
should be, at their cost to Mr. Boott, the whole 
property was, still, only [Ante, p. 356.] $121,500 

and deducting Mr. Lowell's debt of 46,000 



There remained but 75.500 

On either principle of valuation, the deficiency in Mrs. 
Boott 's trust fund, was, early in 1835, from near 25,000 to near 
$35,000 ; and if we admit the fact, deduced from the figures 
of the probate account, that there had been an over-payment 
to the heirs of about $3700, which had encroached upon the 
trust fund, and farther admit that this ought to be allowed to 
the executor, notwithstanding that he had no right to make 
such an encroachment, the deficiency must still stand at from 
$21,000 to $31,000. The actual market value of the stocks, 
in 1835, had they been then used to pay Mr. Lowell's debt, 
might vary this deficiency somewhat ; but, taking them at 
their average value, the variation would not be a favourable 
one for the fund, the Merrimack never being enough above 
par, (which was its cost to Mr. Boott,) to overcome the loss 
upon the Boston, compared with its alleged cost of $1150 
and $1300 per share. The deficiency could rarely, if ever, 
have been reduced in that way below $20,000. 

Now is it not justly amazing, that in the face of this in- 
disputable fact, existing as late as 1835, Mr. Lowell without 



426 



pretending that there was any other property than I have 
above accounted for, or that Mr. Boott was, afterwards, in any 
business, by which either property or income was acquired, 
should have ventured to draw up an account, in 1844, claim- 
ing a balance of ,§25,000, as due from the estate to Mr. Boott, 
and should have (he assurance to insist, up to the present mo- 
ment that it is a true and complete account, and further to 
insist, that no part of the income from the trust property ivas 
ever applied to the payment of Mr. Bootfs debts ? 



CHAPTER XLIII. 



APPROPRIATION OF TRUST FUNDS TO THE PAYMENT OF MR. 



The suggestion, at the close of the last chapter, brings us, 
fairly, to the consideration of the largest item in the account, 
which has not yet been touched, — the sum of $274,686 36, 
charged in a lump, for " income received on the trust fund 
for the widow, from March, 1818, to November, 1844;" and, 
also, credited in a lump, by a precisely corresponding sum, 
under the head of '' Income paid to, or for account, and by 
order of, the widow." 

This credit I formerly spoke of as '^ fictitious ;" [B. p. 
116.] to which Mr. Lowell excepts. [L. p. 94.] I also said, 
that " he [Mr. J. Wright Boott] was enabled, by the aid of 
the large dividends, which accrued upon that stock, [the 
manufacturing stock] to discharge all his personal debts, ex- 
cept the debt to Mr. Lowell," [B. p. 57.] meaning, by that 
exception, the $25,000, remaining due at the time of the 
making up of the probate account, which, from Mr. Lowell's 



427 

concealment of the subsequent advance to Mr. Sturgis, and 
other probable advances, I supposed to be the balance of the 
old $30,000 loan, reduced by the payment of $5,000 in 
November 1831, mstead of the balance of a series of loans 
and advances, as it now seems to have been. The amount 
of the debts, so paid out of the income of the trust property, 
I specified as not less, towards the end of 1843, than " about 
$^60,000." [B. p. 142.] 

These passages Mr. Lowell selects for his answer, which 
is as follows : — 

" Let us look at this a little more narrowly. Mrs. Boott's income, 
as shown by the accounts, had been for twenty-seven years S275,O00, 
or a little more than $10,000 a year. For the thirteen years from 
1831 to 1814, the gross income of all the manufacturing stock did not 
exceed $12,000 a year. It should be remembered, that Mr. Boott 
held, through all this period, stocks which had cost him $1 20,000, 
while the trust fund for his mother was precisely $100,000. lie had, 
therefore, a perfect right to retain one sixth part of the income of 
those stocks, amounting, as I have said, to S12,000; that is, he had a 
right to retain $2000 a year to be appropriated to his own use, or to 
the payment of the principal and interest of his debts. It was for 
this very purpose, that the debt to me was permitted to continue, in- 
stead of being paid oft by a sale of a portion of the stock in 1831." 
[L.p.92.] 

The substance of the answer, therefore, is : — 
■ 1. A distinct admission of the fact, that, for the thirteen 
years from 1831 to 1844, Mr. Boott did retain and appropriate 
to his own use, in the payment of the principal and interest 
of his debts, $2000 a year, out of the gross income of the 
manufacturing stocks, under-estimated by Mr. Lowell at 
$12,000 a year. This $2000, annually subtracted for thir- 
teen years, amounts, without interest, to $26,000. 

2. A justification of the fact, upon the ground that he had 
a right so to retain and appropriate one sixth of the income, 
because the stocks had cost him §120,000, while the trust 
fund for his mother was precisely $100,000. 

My reply is, in the first place, that the admission is very 
far short of the truth, and that the amount, so appropriated, 
considerably exceeds my former statement. In the next, that 
the justification is nothing but a puerile evasion, depending, 



428 



not only upon the assumed right of Mr. Boott to charge the 
stocks to the trust fund at their original cost to him, instead 
of their fair value in 1831, but, also, upon the application of 
that assumed right to the state of the accounts in 1844, after 
his private debts, out of the family, had all been paid off, ex- 
cept the $25,000 due to Mr. Lowell, instead of applying it to 
the state of the accounts before these debts had been paid, 
although the very question is how, and out of what fund, 
the payments were made. 

We have just seen, that, as late as 1835, Mr. Boott owed to 
Mr. Lowell at least $46,000, probably more ; that he had no 
property left, to pay it with, except that, which he held as 
executor, or which he had transferred, as executor, to his 
private pledgees ; and that, taking the whole of this property 
at the rate, which Mr. Lowell contends for, and at which it 
is charged in the account, that is, $121,500, there was, at 
that time, (1835,) after deducting the incumbrance, (esti- 
mated at $46,000 only,) but $75,500, instead of $100,000, 
left for Mrs. Boott's trust fund. [Ante, p. 425.] The change, 
that had occurred in 1844, was, that $21,000, out of the 
$46,000 of debt, had been paid off, — reducing the incum- 
brance to $25,000. Hence, the state of the fund, at the 
moment of making the account in 1844, was, that the execu- 
tor held property, said to have cost him $121,500 

subject to a pledge to Mr. Lowell of 25,000 



and leaving clear for the trust fund, valuing 

the stocks at their cost, 96,500 

Mr. Lowell, instead of first paying himself out of the 
pledged property, as he had a right to do if he still retained a 
lawful lien upon it, chose to part with his lien, and to sur- 
render the whole property to the executor, after having, first, 
made up an account for the executor, which exhibited an 
apparent accountability (leaving out the mansion-house,) for 
the sum of $96,284 ^b only, and exhibited property, by 
charging it at its original cost to Mr. Boott, to the amount 
(without the mansion-house,) of $121,500. The difference 
between these two sums, being $25,215 45, is that, which is 



429 

claimed as the private property of Mr. Boott, in the shape of 
an alleged " cash balance due to the executor." [L. p. 39.] 
This, supposing both parts of the account perfectly true, fur- 
nished a fimd just sufficient to pay Mr. Lowell. 

But, granting all this to have been true, in 1844, the ques- 
tion recurs, out of what fund had the principal of the $21,000 
debt been extinguished, since 1835 ? and out of what fund 
had the interest, since 1831, on the whole $46,000 been kept 
down ? Why, says Mr. Lowell, since " Mr. Boott held, 
through all this period, stocks, which had cost him $120,000, 
while the trust fund for his mother was precisely $100,000,'' 
the accomit proves that one sixth of the stocks, (about $20,000 
in cost,) belonged to Mr. Boott, and, consequently, one sixth 
of the income, or ^2000 per annum, was his own. 

Very well. Granting that, also, for the present, what was 
the debt in 1835 ? At least ^ 46,000. [Ante, Ch. 42.] And 
what was the interest upon it ? At least $2760 per annum. 
But, in 1844, the whole of this interest had been kept down, 
and $21,000 of the principal paid off. Now will Mr. Lowell 
have the goodness to tell us how this was done, out of an in- 
come of $2000 a year? Certainly ^1500 a year was needed 
to keep down the annual interest on the $25,000 of debt to 
Mr. Lowell, which, in 1844, still remained unpaid. There 
was, then, but $500 a year, out of the $2000, applicable an- 
nually, from 1835 to 1844, to the reduction of the $21,000 
debt ; and the mere interest upon that debt amounted to $1260 
a year, so long as the principal was unreduced. Instead, 
therefore, of Mr. Boott's being enabled to pay off the $21,000 
debt, and its interest, out of the $2000 a year, while interest 
was kept down on the $25,000 debt besides, it follows, as 
clearly as that two and two make four, that the $21,000 debt 
ought to have accumulated, at the rate of $760 a year, unless 
something else than the income from one sixth of the stocks 
were taken to pay it with. Present property of Mr. Boott 
there was none, except his interest, if he had any, as Mr. 
Lowell pretends, in these stocks. The "Reply" does not 
even suggest that Mr. Boott owned any otJier species of 
property, except his reversionary interests in the trust fund 



430 

and the mansion-house ; and these he never disposed of, for 
the payment of debt. We have ahead y seen that every thing 
else, formerly owned by Mr. Boott, had proved insufficient to 
pay off his guardianship debt, to which it has been above 
appropriated. [Ante, Ch. 42.] It follows, then, from Mr. 
Lowell's own premises, that $760 a year of interest, from 
1835 to 1844, amounting in those nine years to upwards of 
$6800, together with $21,000 of principal, in all $27,800, 
must have been paid out of the income of those five sixths 
of the stocks, which Mr. Lowell admits Mr. Boott did not 
own ,• in other words, that so much, at least, of his private 
debt must have been paid out of the admitted incojne of the 
admitted trust fund. 

But, further, this supposed private interest of one sixth, in 
the stocks held by Mr. Boott nominally as executor, (admit- 
ting the right to charge them at cost,) is an interest first 
created contemporaneously with the making of the account. 
It is created by Mr. Lowell's own act, in then trajisferring 
all the stocks, held by him in pledge, to Mr. Boott, as execu- 
tor, instead of first paying himself out of them. Before that 
transfer, the equitable interest of one sixth and more, in the 
stocks, justly belonged, not to Mr. Boott, but to Mr. Lowell, 
the pledgee, unless he had lost his lien by his private deal- 
ings with Mr. Boott ; for the stocks had been pledged as se- 
curity for a debt, on which $25,000 was, in 1844, still due, 
and due from a man, who had no other means to pay with, 
unless Mr. Lowell had been content to exchange his right to 
present payment for a mere reversionary interest ; and that 
was never done. Mr. Boott, certainly, could not have, or 
acquire, a personal interest, by any right or act of his own, in 
these pledged stocks, until he had first redeemed them from 
the pledge by some means of his own. Their value, beyond 
the pledge, Mr. Lowell admits, belonged to the estate. Mr. 
Lowell, then, confers the interest on him, if he gets it at all, 
by transferring the stocks clear of that debt. Just look, then, 
at the curiosity of the argument. 

My allegation is, that Mr. Boott had been, for years back, 
paying his own debts, to a very large amount, out of the in- 



431 

come of his trust funds, which were invested in certain 
stocks. Mr. Lowell, on the 18th of November, 1S44, does 
an act, which on that day, for the first time, vests in Mr. 
Boott, personally, as he contends, a certain limited interest, 
equal, as he says, to one sixth, in those same stocks ; which 
interest, up to that time, had, for many years, belonged to 
Mr. Lowell. And he then says, in effect, " Mr. Boott could 
not, in former years^ have been paying off his debts out of 
the income of the stocks held in trust, because, you perceive, 
he himself, now, owns one sixth of these stocks, and conse- 
quently one sixth of the income must always have been his, 
and might well have been applied to the payment of his own 
debts." This looks very much like the ''attributing of an 
antecedent event to a subsequent cause," — which Mr. Lowell 
says, "requires a peculiar constitution of mind," and to him 
"would have been impossible." [L. p. 12.] 

Bat, although Mr. Lowell's admission, as above shown, es- 
tablishes the fact, beyond dispute, that Mr. Boott had thus 
applied near $28,000 of the income from his trust funds, in 
the years from 1835 to 1844, this, I have said, is far short of 
the truth. I now propose to show the extent, to which this 
was done, from the time of the reconstruction of a trust fund, 
in May, 1831, to the date of the probate account in Novem- 
ber, 1844. And, for this, it is only necessary to look back 
to the state of affairs just before May, 1831, and to see, once 
more, what the debts were, and what the means. 

For this purpose I begin at the time of the sale of the store, 
in February, 1831. I exclude the debts of the foundry, and 
of Lyman & Ralston, whether more or less, because they were 
all wiped off, so far as Mr. Boott is concerned, by the settle- 
ment of September, 1831 ; and I count the cash, which Mr. 
Lowell says came from that settlement, as means for the pay- 
ment of other debts. I exclude all question about the partic- 
ular trust fund, for the aunts, of $11,111 12, and about in- 
debtedness beyond the trust funds, and I count the liability 
to the estate at $100,000 only, — the amount of the required 
fund for Mrs. Boott. I take the property, too, standing in the 
name of the executor, at its alleged cost to Mr. Boott, as Mr. 



432 

Lowell requires. I take all other assets, which Mr. Boott 
then had, at what they actually produced, and charge against 
him none but the unquestionable debts. That is, I take, 
throughout, Mr. Lowell's own premises, except for the amount 
of the guardianship debt, which I take as it now stands cor- 
rected by Mr. Boott's own guardianship accounts : — 

The amount of that debt, before the partial payment from 
the proceeds of the store, was, as ^Ir. Tyler shows from 
those accounts, interest included, [Ante. p. 235.] about $46,500 

The further balance of interest, which accrued before the 
final payment to the wards, in 1835, according to the high- 
ly favorable principle for computing an interest account 
adopted by Mr. Tyler, was about 1,100 



* This, I believe, was about the market price at that time, 

t They were : 1831, May, per share, $80 

" Nov. " 100 

1832, May " 60 
" Nov. " 40 

1833, May " 60 
•' Nov. " 70 

1834, May " 60 
" Nov. " 60 

$530 



Total guardianship debt paid off, after the sale of the store, 

in 1831, 47,600 

To this debt I now propose to apply all the means Mr. Boott 
had, except the property, which stands in his executor's 
account, and its income, and except the sum of $5000, 
which he paid to Mr. Lowell, in November, 1831, viz. 

Proceeds of store, [L. p. 86.] $16,000 

Cash proceeds of foundry, less the $5000 payment 

to Mr. Lowell, [L. p. 79.] 2,624 

Collected by me, on Lilly's note, principal and in- 
terest, [B. App. pp. 26-28.] 5,212 

Amount realized from the final sale of that note to 
Mr. Welch, in October, 1835, which I apply, by 
anticipation, in January, 1835, [Ante. p. 290.] 5,500 

Two shares of Merrimack, sold by the executor, 
in March, 1837, [B. App. p. 31.] which I also 
apply by anticipation, and assume to have pro- 
duced 33 per cent, advance,* 2,660 

Dividends on same, from May, 1831, to January, 

1835, t 1,060 



33,056 
14,544 



433 



It is plain, since we have exhausted all other means, that 
this balance of $14,544 coald have been paid from nothing 
but the income of the stocks comprised in the account. It 
maij have been paid, for the moment, it is true, in 1835, by 
some new temporary loan ; but, if so, that loan, with the in- 
terest upon it, must finally have been paid oat of the income 
from those stocks, for the reason above stated, namely, that 
we have exhausted all the other means, by appropriating them, 
directly, to the guardianship debt ; and it is most favourable 
for Mr. Boott, on the score of interest, to take no account of 
such new loan. This settles one item. 

Then comes the original debt to Mr. Lowell. That debt, 
in May, 1831, Avas $30,000; in November, 1831, it was re- 
duced, by a payment, which I have above taken from the 
cash proceeds of the foundry, to $25,000. It remained at 
that, in November, 1844. Consequently, there was paid upon 
it, six months interest on 30,000, and thirteen years interest 
on $25,000, (amoimting to $20,400,) which, for the same 
reason, could only have been paid out of this income. This 
is another item. 

Next comes the debt to Mr. Sturgis, which, in May, 1831, 
was $21,000. It was transferred to Mr. Lowell in November, 
1831, but remained unreduced till ''after January, 1834," as 
the " Reply" tells us, [L. p. 97.] and, as I have above inferred, 
till after the settlement of the guardianship accounts, in 1835. 
When, and by what instalments, it was in fact paid off, we are 
not informed, but may safely infer that it was only gradually 
reduced. Indeed this seems to be the effect of Mr. Lowell's 
statement. [L. p. 97.] " that Mr. Boott reduced his debt to me 
$26,000, during these very thirteen years :" — ^the $26,000 be- 
ing composed of the $5000 paid in November, 1831, on account 
of his old $30,000 loan, and the $21,000 debt purchased from 
Mr. Sturgis, which is now in question. Considering the amount 
of income necessary for Mrs. Boott, and the amount of inter- 
est to be paid, annually, on this $21,000 debt, and on the 
$25,000 also duo to Mr. Lowell, and that, up to 1844, nothing 
had been found applicable to the further reduction of the 
$25,000 debt, v/e may not unreasonably allow the whole eight 

55 



434: 



years, between 1835 and 1844, for the final extinction of the 
$21j000. Interest was paid, of course, upon the whole sum 
for the four years from 1831 to 1835 ,• and if eight years, af- 
ter that, were required for the gradual payment of the princi- 
pal, we may fairly reckon that the interest upon the decreas- 
ing capital during those eight years, was equal to about four 
years more of interest on the whole sum. This gives for in- 
terest, in all, about $10,000, which, together with the princi- 
pal of f 21,000, must have been paid, wholly ^ from the income 
of the stocks. 

Let us now put these sums together : — ' . 

Balance of the guardianship debt, after applying to it all 

other means, except income from the stocks, $14,544 

Interest on the old debt to Mr. Lowell, from May, 1831, to 

November, 1844, 20,400 

Interest on the Sturgis debt, purchased by him, from 1831 

to 1843, 10,000 

Principal of that debt, 21,000 



Total, S65,944 

These are sums, which, we see and know, must have been 
paid from the income of the stocks held by the executor, ac- 
cording to the account of 1844, simply for the reason that 
there was nothing else to pay them with ;— for we have pre- 
viously applied to the guardianship debt all the other prope7^- 
ty there vms in Mr. Boott's hands, and all the income upon it ; 
and Mr. Lowell himself tells us, that " Mr. Boott entered into 
no mercantile business, or speculations" after 1831 ; [L. p. 
91.] and we have seen that he refused the agencies and em- 
ployments offered to him, from which he might have derived 
income ; and it is not pretended that he in fact earned any 
thing, thenceforward, to the day of his death. 

This $65,944 was a sum subtracted from the income^ mere- 
ly, of funds belonging to the executor, in the course of thir- 
teen years, being at the rate of more than $5000 a year. 
Either the estate, therefore, or Mrs. Boott was the loser, by 
appropriation during that period, to Mr. Boott's debts, of 
more than $5000 a year, for each year of the series, and of 
course was the loser of the interest upon each sum of $5000, 



435 



from the time it was taken. Simple interest upon $5000, an- 
nually subtracted, will be found to amount, at the end of the 
thirteen years, to something like $25,000 more * In all, 
principal and interest, over $90,000 ! And this is only one 
particular loss, occasioned by the mismanagement of Mr. Boott, 
as shown from premises, which Mr. Lowell has admitted, ex- 
cept so far as they depend on simple arithmetic, and on the 
correction in the amount of Mr. Boott's debt to his wards. 

Who represents truly, then ? I, who said that at least 
$60,000 of Mr. Boott's debts, in principal and interest, was 
paid out of the income of his trust funds? Or Mr. Lowell, 
who comments upon that statement as if it were an utter false- 
hood, and declares that nothing had ever been so applied, ex- 
cept Mr. Boott's own property and income? Even if the 
$2000 a year, which the " Reply" claims to have been Mr. 
Boott's private income, were made out to be his, this would 
fall short of the amount subtracted from the income of these 
funds, by an aggregate of about $40,000. 

But did Mr. l^owell, in making up the account for Mr. 
Boott in fact subtract one sixth of the income from all the 
stocks as Mr. Boott's ? Or did he treat it all as Mrs. Boott's ? 

Since the account gives us nothing but a result, purporting 
to be the aggregate of all the income " on the trust fund for 
the widow" during the whole period of the executorship, it 
is impossible to see, from the account, how this aggregate 
was arrived at ; and the "Reply" does not tell us. But let 
us see how near an approach to it we can make by evidence 
aliunde. 

We know, precisely, what stocks originally constituted the 
trust fund, as formed April 1, 1818. We know this from the 
executor's probate account of that period. [B. App. p. 14] I 
have already stated its contents, and I have ascertained and 
shown the dates, at which the executor parted with each par- 
cel of the stocks, named in that account, except a portion of 
the U. S. 6 per cents., of which the record of transfer is miss- 

* If the $5000 were taken out at the beginning of each year, the interest, at the 
end of the thirteen years, would amount to $27,300. If taken out at the end of 
each year, the interest would be $24,000. 



436 



ing. [Ante. pp. 268-271.] That portion, (since we know- 
it was sold at some time,) may fairly be presumed, in the 
absence of any evidence to the contrary, to have been sold at 
or near the same time with the other stock of the same de- 
scription. With that assumption only, I have ascertained, 
and state in a subjoined note, the income upon all the stocks, 
composing the trust fund of 1818, during the times they were 
respectively held by the executor.* 

So of the manufacturing stock, afterwards purchased by 
Mr. Boott : we are informed by the account, and the '' Re- 
ply," and by certified transcripts from the stock records of 
the companies, which I formerly printed, [B. App. pp. BO- 
SS,] exactly how many shares of each kind of stock were 
considered and treated by Mr. Boott as representing his trust 
funds. After ascertaining the number of shares in each com- 
pany held for the trust, at different periods, there is no diffi- 
culty in ascertaining the amount of the dividends received 
upon them ; since the dividends paid, from time to time, by 
those companies, are matters of notoriety, and are recorded 
in their books, and in the books of the individuals who re- 
ceived thern, and in other private records. I have ascertain- 
ed these, also, during the entire period, and state them in a 
subjoined note.* And what is the result ? The aggregate 
of the income thus ascertained, from 1818 to 1844, is 
f 274,982 S6 ; and the sum, with which the executor is char- 
ged, for income, in the probate account, is $274,686 S6. 
That is to say, there is a difference of only $296. 

How happens this very close approximation of an estimate 
made in that manner, from unquestionable data, to the state- 



^ Statement op Dividends, 
Eeceived on stocks held by the executor, during the time he held them. 

SuFEOLK Insurance Company. 510 shares, par $17,000. 

Bought, April 1, 1818. [See executor's account, B. App, p. 14.] 

Sold, April 15, 1824, [Ante. p. 268.] 

Dividends, ascertained from books of the company. In 1818, none. In 1819, 
April, 10 per cent.; October, 6 per cent. In 1820, 1821, 1822, 1823, and April, 
1824, each six months, 6 per cent. 

Total, 70 per cent, on ?51 7,000, is . ^ . ^ . . . $11,900 



437 



ment of the account ? Is it mere accident ? Or, does it indi- 
cate that the statement of the account Avas arrived at by some 
similar process ? Is the difference greater than may be rea- 
sonably accounted for by some arithmetical error, or some 
trifling discrepancy in the estimate of some one of the divi- 
dends? Unless Mr. Lowell shall disclose, therefore, some 
additional subject of income^ taken into consideration by 

Suffolk Bank. 200 shares, par $20,000. 
Bought, April 1, 1818. [See executor's account, B. App. 14.] 
Transferred to Boott & Lowell, October 2, 1822. [Ante. p. 271.] 
Dividends, ascertained from books of the bank. 1818, April, none; October, 
1 1-2 per cent.; 1819, 1820, April and October, 3 1-2 per cent, each; 1821, April, 
.2 1-2 per cent. ; October, 3 per cent. ; 1822, April and October, 2 1-2 per cent, each. 
Total, 26 per cent, on $20,000, - - $5,200 

U. S. 7 PER CENT. STOCK. Par, $31,111 U. 
Bought, April 1, 1818. [B. App. p. 14.] 

Transferred to Boott & Lowell, October 1, 1822. [Ante. p. 268,] 
Pour annual dividends, of 7 per cent, each, on $31,111 11, are - $8,711 11 

U. S. 6 PEE CENT. STOCK. Par, $43,000. 
Bought, April 1, 1818. [B. App. p. 14.] 
Sold, $21,000, in July and August, 1819. [Ante. p. 269.] 

Remaining $23,000, of which the record of transfer is missing, supposed to have 
Jbeen sold about the same time. 

One annual dividend of 6 per cent, on $43,000, is - - - - $2,580 

Boston Manufacturing Company. 

Mr. Boott subscribed, March 1, 1820, for thirty shares, [B. App. p. 32.] of which 
eighteen are stated in the " Reply " to have been for the account of Mrs. Boott's 
trust fund. [L. p. 69.] 

In March, 1826, the number of shares was increased to thirty-nine, by transfer 
of twenty- one from Mr. Kirk Boott, [B. App. p. 32.] which are stated in the 
•*' Reply " to have been for the account of the trust fund. [L p. 70.] 

Dividends, ascertained from Mr. Boott's guardianship accounts,, and other 
private records, on each share, as follows : — 



1820, April 


and October, 


$50 00 


1826, 


April and October,. 


$80 OQ 


1821, 






200 00 


1827 


(C 




90 00 


1822, " 






225 00 


1828 


" 




120 00 


1823, 






188 12 1-2 


1829 


" 




75 00 


1824, 






250 00 


1830 


(( 




70 00 


1825, « 






290 00 


1831 
1832 
1833 






110 00 
100 00 
100 00 


Total received < 


3n one share 


!, 1,203 12 1-2 


" 


(C 


Multiply by 


Xo 


.of shares. 


18 


1834 


" 


« 


70 00 










1835 


" 


{«.. 


80 00 


Aeffreeate, 






$21,656 25 








$895 00 



438 



him in preparing the account, I think the reader, when he sees 
that the only stocks, ever held by the executor, yielded, during 
the time he held them, an aggregate of income, which is only 



Brought over, 


$895 00 


1836, April and October, 


70 00 


1837, April, 


30 00 


1838, October, 


30 00 


1839, April and October, 


60 00 


1840, October, 


30 00 


1841, April and October, 


60 00 


1842, 


00 00 


1843, October, 


30 00 


1844, April and October, 


80 00 



Total on one share. 
Multiply by No. of stares, 



$1,285 00 
39 

$50,115 00 



Aggregate, 
Merrimack Manufacturing Company. 

Mr, Boott's subscriptions to the first and second issues of stock were for 96 
shares, of which 20 were sold, or transferred, before the first dividend, in June, 1825, 
leaving seventy-six shares, of which eight were, afterwards, put to the guardianship 
accounts. [B. App. p. 30.] This left sixty-eight shares for the executor's account. 

In February, 1826, the number was increased to seventy- three, by a transfer of 
five shares from Mr. James Boott. [B. App. p. 30.] These seventy-three shares 
were all marked as belonging to the estate, by the arrangements of May, 1831 ; 
viz. forty-two shares under pledge to Mr. Sturgis, twenty-five under pledge to Mr. 
Lowell, and six transferred in trust to me. [Ante. p. 198, 293, and B. App. p. 23.] 

In February, 1837, two of these shares, which had been restored to the executor, 
were sold by him, [B. App. p. 31.] leaving, from that time, seventy-one, the num- 
ber stated to be on hand by the account of 1844. [L. p. 39.] 

The dividends, received on these shares, up to the date of the probate account, 
(Nov. 18, 1844,) were, for each share, as follows : — 



1825, June and Dec. $175 




1837, 


$000 


No. of shares. 


68 1826, June and Dec. 


$80 


1838, Nov. 


370 




1827, " " 


90 


1839, May and Nov. 110 


Aggregate, 


$11,900 1828, June, or July, 


60 


1840, 


90 




1829, Jan. 


60 


1841, « 


« 120 




1830, May and Nov. 


80 


1842, 


80 




1831, " « 


180 


1843, « 


" 160 




1832, " « 


100 


1844, 


'^ 100 




1833, " « 


130 








1834, 


120 




1,030 




1835, " 


180 


No. of shares. 


71 




1836, " " 


IfiO 








$1,230 
No. of shares 73 


Aggregate, 


$73,130 



Aggregate, 



$89,790 



439 



a fraction short of $275,000, and that the sum, spoken of as 
income in the account, is, also, only a fraction short of 
$275,000, will be apt to infer, that sums, so nearly coinci- 
dent, represent, in truth, and are intended to represent, the 
same substantial thing. In other words, I think the reader 
must infer, that Mr. Lowell, when he made up that item of 
the account, intended to state the amount of all the income, 
which the executor had actually received from these stocks, 
during the time that he held them, from the date of the form- 
ation of the original trust fund, to the date of the rendition 
of the probate account of 1844. 

For the purpose of the account, it is true, that, in one 
view, it was very immaterial whether the executor was de- 
bited with one sum or another sum, for income received ; 
since the debit, whatever it might be, was about to be im- 
mediately counter-entered, (as it in fact is,) by the credit of 
a precisely corresponding sum, as ''paid to, or for account* 
and by order of, the widow." It was only desirable to state 
a sum, that would look creditable, and also probable, with 
reference to the stocks mentioned as held by the executor ; 
and the surest guarantee for the probability of the statement 
would, of course, be, to make a pretty close estimate of the 
actual dividends, which those stocks had paid. But however 
immaterial the sum may have been, then, it is very material. 



Eecapitulation. 

Suffolk Insurance Company, amount of Dividends, ... $11,90000 

Suffolk Bank, u u ... 5.20O 00 

U. S. 7 per cents, a » ... 8,71111 

U. S. 6 per cents, u cc ... 2,580 00 

Boston Manufacturing Company, 1820 to 1825, on 18 shares, - 21,656 25 

^ " " 1826 to 1844, on 39 " - - 50,115 00 

Merrimack Manufacturing Company, 1825, on 68 " - - 11,900 00 

" " 1826 to 1836, on 73 shares, - 89,790 00 

" " 1837 to 1844, on 71 " - 73,130 00 



Total amount of income by the foregoing estimate, - - - $274,982 36 

Amountof income according to the account of 1844, - - - $274,686 36 

Difference, . . . . 296 00 



440 



noWj in testing the reality of the account, and the truth o€ 
the ^' Reply," to know how that statement of income was; 
arrived at. I show one mode, in which it may, easily, and 
naturally, have been reached. My statement, made up in 
that mode, embraces all the income, which was, in fact, de- 
rived from all the stocks known to have been held by Mr. 
Boott, (except as guardian or trustee for the F. Boott family,) 
within the times, for which he is known to have held them, 
and during the entire period of the executorship. The sum, 
so ascertained, is found to correspond almost exactly, with 
the sum stated in the account under the head of income. 
Now, if there was any other income, intended to be included 
in that statement, it is incumbent on Mr. Lowell to show 
what it was, whence it could have proceeded, and how it 
was computed. Should he fail to do that, — and. thus far he 
has shown no such thing, — the truth, both of the account 
and of the "Reply," may safely be tested by the presump- 
tion, on which I now proceed, that his statement, and my 
statement, of the sources of income, and the am aunt of in- 
come, so far as our respective statements go, are substantially 
the same. If this be so, I ask, How can Mr. Lowell venture 
to intimate, in his " Reply," and lead his readers to infer, 
that one sixth of '• the gross income of all the manufacturing 
stock" belonged to Mr. J. Wright Boott, personally, when 
the whole of that income is needful to make up the sum^ 
which the account declares to have been " Income received 
on the trust fund for the widow, from March, 1818, to Nov- 
ember, 1844," and to have been ''paid," accordingly, ''to, or 
for account aud by order of, the widow ?" 

If Mr. Lowell, in preparing this part of the account, 
really allowed for one sixth of "the gross income of all the 
manufacturing stock" as belonging to Mr. Boott, he must be 
ready, now, to show " gross income" received, to the amount 
of $330,000, instead of $275,000,— which latter sum would 
be the five sixths belonging, on that hypothesis, to " the trust 
fund for the widow." If he fails to show income received to 
the amount of $330,000, from property, which I cannot make 
out to have yielded more than $275,000, he must at least 



441 

admit, that Mrs. Boott's income, when rated, in the account, 
at $275,000, is there set down at one sixth more than it 
ought to have been, and that the credit of the account, for 
near $275,000 paid '' to, or for account and by order of, the 
widow," is not only '' fictitious," but positively false, to the 
extent of more than $45,000 ; or else he must admit, that 
the suggestion of the '' Reply," that one sixth of the 
$275,000 belonged to Mr. Boott, was merely thrown out for 
effect, without the slightest foundation in fact. He shall 
choose, as he pleases, among these alternatives. 

Besides, if $275,000 really represents the total income 
from the stocks constituting the trust fund, (which, when we 
look to the stocks, and to the actual dividends upon them, 
seems to be an unquestionable fact,) we cannot help asking, 
with reference to the truth of the account, what became of 
the aunts and their income ? It is admitted, by the " Reply," 
that the original trust fund of 1818, amounting, exclusive of 
premiums paid for the stocks, to exactly $111,111 11, was 
intended to cover their annuities, as well as Mrs. Boott's. 
[L. pp. 24, 52.] They both lived a number of years. If I am 
right as to the dates of their respective deaths, they should 
have received from their annuities, in the aggregate, some 
where about $8000. Now there is not a word of any such 
payment in the account. Are we to understand, then, that 
Mr. Boott wholly omitted to pay those annuities to any body? 
or must we understand, according to the literal statement of 
the account, that he paid them to Mrs. Boott, instead of the 
aunts? Is this entry of the account, " fictitious"? or is it 
a solemn reality ? Did Mr. Boott pay any thing to the 
aunts? or did he not? Did he first subtract, as the ''Re- 
ply " suggests, one sixth of the gross income, as his owUy 
before he stated $275,000 to be the " income received 
on the trust fund for the widow " ? Or was $275,000, or 
thereabouts, the actual gross income of his whole stock in- 
vestment, as I suggest, — all, necessarily, representing his trust 
funds, as I have abundantly shown, — and was he, neverthe- 

56 



<* 



442 

less, unfortunately compelled to use near $66,000 of that in- 
come for the payment of his own debts ? 

One or two other statements of the '' Reply," in this con- 
nexion, deserve a passing notice. 

Having asserted that " the gross income of all the manu- 
facturing stock did not exceed $12,000 a year," and that Mr. 
Boott had a " perfect right to retain one sixth part of the in- 
come of those stocks," on the ground that it was his own, 
the " Reply " goes on to say :— 

" Mrs. Boott's income, therefore^ during the thirteen years in ques- 
tion, [from 1831 to 1844,] did not exceed SI 0,000 a year. A rea- 
sonably larofe income, too, from a fund of SI 00,000. 

" From this income Mr. Boott remitted to his mother about S6000 
a year ; not So, 000, as Mr. Brooks, with his usual accuracy, asserts, 
I have before me a precise statement of those remittances, and the 
average is between So, 900 and S 6,000 a year. In addition to tliis^ 
Mrs. Boott's establishment in Bowdoin Square was to be kept up.'^ 
[L. p. 93.] 

" To do this, as well as pay Mrs. Boott's taxes, and such sums as 
she might order to be expended here from time to time, sums, to my 
knowledge, often considerable, there was left but S4,000 a year.'^ 
[L. p. 93.] 

Reference is then made to an estimate of Mr. William 
Boott, which, it is said, " supposes the expense of the estab- 
lishment and the taxes to amount to about $4300 a year." 
[L. p. 99.] 

And the conclusion is : — 

" At all events, it is perfectly obvious that Mr. Boott could have de- 
rived nothing from this source [Mrs. Boott's income,] to enable him 
to pay the $167,000 of debt, and Mr. Brooks's fancied deficit of 
863,000 into the bargain." [L. p. 94.] 

How Mr. Lowell disposes of the debt and the deficit I have 
already shown. [Ante, Ch. 25, Ch. 26.] The argument, now 
to be dealt with, is, that there was no opportunity to apply any 
part of the income from the trust funds to Mr. Boott's debts, 
whether more or less, for the reason that it was all, necessarily, 
absorbed in other expenditures, for Mrs. Boott's own purposes. 

J. shall answer the argument by showing, partly from the 



443 

*' Reply" itself, and partly from other evidence, which Mr. 
Lowell can not question, that, after satisfying every other re° 
quisition upon Mrs. Boott's income, suggested in the '' Reply," 
there is no way left, to account for the whole expenditure, ex- 
cept by appropriating to Mr. Boott's debts, ^' durir g the 
thirteen years in question," just about so much of his trust 
funds, as I have already shown, in another way, must have 
been so appropriated. 

The thirteen years, spoken of, are, in truth, a little more. 
They run from the end of May, 1831, to the middle of No- 
vember, 1844. 

Mr. Lowell gives his readers to understand, by the passages 
above extracted, that, during that period, about $6000 a year 
was remitted to Mrs. Boott, and that the expense of an es- 
tablishment in Bowdoin square was kept up at the same time, 
which, with taxes, and other expenses for Mrs. Boott, alluded 
to in general terms, but not specified, is said to have taken up 
^4000, or, according to the largest estimate, $4300, a year, 
This is stated as a payment for Mrs. Boott, in addition to the 
^6000 a year, which was remitted to her in England. With 
reference to the whole thirteen years, the '' Reply" says : — 

" In the face of this notorious fact, that Mrs. Boott was keeping up 
a double establishment, in England and in this country, on an income 
of $10,000 a year, Mr. Brooks does not hesitate to style the charge of 
S27o,000 paid to, or for account and by order of, the widow, during 
twenty-seven years, "fictitious." [L. p. 94.] 

Now, Mrs. Boott was, herself, living in this country, during 
the^s^ jive years and more of this period. She went to 
England in September, 1836. So says the " Reply." [L. p. 56.] 
There was no expense, then, of a double establishment dur- 
ing those ^ve years of the period, and the statement of the 
'' Reply" is, so far, positively untrue. I have already had oc- 
casion to state, that Mrs. Boott, after the embarrassments of 
the trust fund were discovered in 1830-1, was advised, by 
Mr. Kirk Boott and by myself, of the necessity of curtailing 
her expenses, and that she in fact practised, from that time till 
she Avent to England, a rigid economy, considering the nature 



444 

of her establishment. I have heretofore estimated her ex- 
penditm-e, during this time^ and I think, liberally, at $5000 a 
year. [Ante, p. 421.] This would amount, for the five years 
and three or four months, from May, 1831, to September, 
1836, to $26,600. 

In the next place, the amount remitted to Mrs. Boott, after 
she went to England, is stated above, roundly, at about $6000 
a year, and " a precise statement" is said to show it to have 
been '^ between $5900 and $6000 a year." I shall have occa- 
sion to advert to this again. At present, I will only refer the 
reader to another part of the '' Reply," in which is given the 
'' precise statement" of the aggregate amount remitted to Mrs. 
Boott, viz. $43,037 02. [L. p. 56.] It is true, that this is 
said to have been from September, 1836. to December, 1843 ; 
and the date of the probate account, which terminates the se- 
ries of thirteen years, is November 18, 1844. But, after De- 
cember, 1843, there were no dividends paid, by either the 
Boston, or the Merrimack, Manufacturing Company, (the on- 
ly sources of income,) from which a remittance could have 
been made, until April and May, (or June,) following ; and, 
at that time, I had taken the stand, which required a change 
of the trusteeship, involving, necessarily, a settlement of the 
executor's accounts ; and it will be seen, presently, that Mr. 
Boott and Mr. Lowell were sensible of this necessity, and 
were then acting with reference to it. No pecuniary means, 
that might accrue, could be spared under such circumstances. 
They were all needed to enable Mr. Boott to settle as good 
an account as possible, without leaving Mr. Lowell unpaid. 
I shall not believe, therefore, until I see a '' precise state- 
ment" to the contrary, that one dollar was remitted to Mrs. 
Boott, in that state of affairs, from December, 1843, until 
after the probate account was finally settled in December, 
1844. Indeed, it will be seen, that, November 17, 1844, Mrs. 
Boott wrote a letter of com{)laint, respecting her deprivation 
of income, which must have been founded on the fact, now 
suggested, that no remittance had recently been made. [B. 
App. p. 45.] It will be noted, too, when we come to it, that 



445 

the ^' Reply" is extremely careful to stop its report of remit- 
tances exactly m the month of December, 1843. I think, 
therefore, we may safely set down the aggregate of all the 
remittances, within the thirteen years now in question, at the 
sum which the ''precise statement" names ; viz. $43,037 02. 

In the third place, for the expeoses of the establishment 
here, including taxes, and the other unnamed et ceteras, what- 
ever they may have been, I am content to take, for the eight 
years from September, 1836, to November, 1844, the largest 
sum suggested in the " Reply ;" namely, $4300 a year, 
amounting to ^34,400. 

Finally, the sum, which I have before mentioned as the 
amount of private debts paid by Mr. Boott, during these thir- 
teen years, out of his trust funds, was $65,944. [Ante. p. 
434.] 

Let us now put these sums together, and see what they 
amount to, and how they compare with the known means. 

Expense of Mrs. Boott's establishment, while at home, 
from May, 1831, to September, 1836, at the rate of 
$5000 a year, $26,600 00 

Remitted to her, in England, after September, 1836, and 

before the settlement of the probate account, 43,037 02 



69,637 02 



Expense of the establishment, kept up here by 
Mr. J. W. Boott, including taxes, &c., from 
1836 to 1844, at the rate of S4300 a year, 34,400 

Paid for principal and interest on Mr. Boott's 

debts, as heretofore shown, [Ante, p. 434.] 65,944 



100,344 00 
$169,981 02 

Now, let us see, if the known means do not just about cor- 
respond with the foregoing estimate of expenditure. 
They were as follows : — 

Dividends on seventy-three shares of Merrimack, from May, 
1831, to November. 1836, (both inclusive,) as heretofore 
shown, [Ante, p. 438, note.] 62,780 



446 

Brought forward, $62,780 

Two shares sold, in March, 1837, at thirty-three per cent. 

advance, [Ante, p. 438, note.] 2,660 

Dividends on seventy-one shares of JMerrimack, thence to 
November 18, 1844, (which does not reach and include 
the last semi-annual dividend of that year,) as heretofore 
shown, [Ante, p. 438, note.] . 73,130 

Dividends on thirty-nine shares of Boston Manufacturing 
Company, from May, 1831, (which excludes the April 
dividend of S50 in that year,) to November 18, 1844, 
(which includes the two dividends of that year,) as here- 
tofore shown, [Ante, pp. 437-8, note.] 31,200 

169,770 

Any one of the items, in the foregoing estimate of expendi- 
ture^ may well have varied, in fact, from the estimate, by a few 
hundred dollars. Bat the estimate of means is all made up 
of recorded facts, respecting which, in the absence of accident- 
al error, there is no room for dispute. 

The result, theU; is, that the income from the stocks, held 
by the executor during these thirteen years, and the proceeds 
of a sale of two shares of Merrimack, sold by the executor, fur- 
nished, in round numbers, $170,000, in cash, to Mr. Boott ; 
and that nearly $66,000 of this cash, thus traced into his 
hands, is wholly unaccounted for, unless it were applied to the 
payment of his debts ; which debts, to that amount, in princi- 
pal and interest, we know were in fact paid, during that pe- 
riod ; and for which, it has been shown, there were no means 
of payment in Mr. Boott's power, except the property, which 
he held as executor, and the income he derived from it. 

And when the questions are, whether Mr. Boott managed 
well as an executor, or not, and whether there was a balance 
due to him, or not, from his father's estate, at the time of the 
stating of the probate account of 1844, and whether Mrs. 
Boott did, or did not, receive from him, as the account pre- 
tends, the whole income, to which she was entitled, it is cu- 
rious to observe, that, of the $170,000 of cash, above traced 
to the executor's hands, less than $70,000 appears to have 
gone directly to Mrs. Boott's own use, while $100,000 went, 
mainly, to the use of Mr. Boott ; for the establishment, kept 
up here, after 1836, whether we choose to call it Mr. Boott's, 



447 

or Mrs. Boott's, was certainly more for his benefit than hers ; 
and the residue of the money went to the payment of his 
debts. 

The real truth, therefore, at which we arrive, is, not only 
that the greater part of Mrs. Boott's income was, for thirteen 
years, applied by Mr. J. Wright Boott to his own use, (not 
wantonly, but because it was a necessary consequence of the 
state, to which former mismanagement had reduced his trust 
funds,) but that he, also, found himself compelled, when divi- 
dends failed, as they did in 1837, to encroach upon the prin- 
cipal of the trust fund itself, by selling two sharesof the Mer- 
rimack stock, and using the proceeds in such manner as his 
own necessities, and those of his mother, (occasioned by 
him,) may, at the time, have required. 

Is it not, then, a most extraordinary circumstance, that Mr. 
Lowell, well knowing every fact, which has now been exhib- 
ited to the reader, should have had the singular boldness to 
have published under his name, and in so imposing a style, 
the statements on this part of the case, which his "Reply" is 
found to contain ? The reader must, as yet, be utterly at a 
loss to account for it. Until he sees the whole case, it would 
be somewhat imprudent, perhaps, to attempt to account for 
any thing. I only ask him to ascertain the facts, as he pro- 
ceeds. 



448 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

PRETENCE OF AUTHORITY FROM MRS. ROOTT TO APPLY HER IN- 
COME TO THE PAYMENT OF MR. ROOTt's DERTS. 

I have already cited, from the " Reply," the passage, which 
sets up for Mr. Boott the justification of a pretended owner- 
ship of one sixth of the stocks ; and we have looked, as Mr. 
Lowell requests, " a little more narrowly" at the evidence on 
this head, and have seen what it leads to. Another passage, 
deserving brief comment, is as follows : — 

" The only other imputation, that I am aware of, brought forward 
by Mr. Brooks, in this connection, is, that Mr. Boott expended or ap- 
propriated his raotlier's income without her knowledge or consent, and 
this in the face of her own discharge, which asserts the very contrary ''^ 
[L. p. 75.J 

The discharge, here alluded to, was printed by me in my 
former pamphlet. [B. App. p. 38.] It does not assert that, 
which Mr. Lowell says it asserts, — at least, not in direct 
terms. This is only Mr. Lowell's peremptory mode of stating 
his own inference and construction. Mine are different. 

The paper was executed in London, May 29, 1844. This,. 
it will be observed, was nearly six months before the account 
of November 18, 1844, was presented in Boston; and Mr. 
Lowell strenuously insists, that " these accounts were present- 
ed at the probate office as soo?i as they were made wjo." [L. 
p. 31.] He refers, in proof of it, to a letter of Mr. C. G. Loring, 
printed by me, [B. App. p. 43.] in answer to one from Mr. 
William Boott, dated November 7, 1844, in which Mr. Loring,- 
upon such information as he had, says, '' The accounts of your 
brother have not yet heen made up ; though / believe that the 
materials are now all at hand." [L. p. 32.] The dis- 
charge, therefore, was a discharge made in anticipation of a 



449 

probate account, about to he prepared^ and not onview of the 
particular account, which was, afterwards, in fact presented. 

The discharge itself also recites, that, '' by reason of the 
unlimited confidence always existing between us, the settle-- 
ment of periodical accounts has not been thought necessary, 
and, as far as I am concerned^ never would 6e." [B. App. p. 
38.] It is, thus, apparent that the discharge was given, not 
only without sight of the particular account, which it was 
used to pass, but without sight of any previous accounts. 
They had never been required, or rendered, in consequence of 
the " unlimited confidence" between the parties. 

It is true the instrument does, also, recite, that 

" My beloved son John "Wright Boott, of said Boston, Esquire, was 
appointed sole executor of said will, and as such, and by virtue of the 
provisions thereof, became, and has since continued to be, the trustee 
of said fund of $100,000, and has fully and faithfully paid me, or ap- 
propriated and accounted to me, for all the income thereof to which I 
have been, or am, in any wise entitled, to my entire satisfaction and 
approval^ [B. App. p. 38.] 

But, if no accounts had been ever rendered or stated,which 
I aver, and the discharge itself admits, how did Mrs. Boott 
know what her fund was invested in, or what the income 
from it had been, or in what manner that income had in fact 
been appropriated ? All she could know would be, that she 
had received a certain sum, yearly, as and for the income of 
her $100,000; and the sum, so received, she presumed to be 
the whole income, to which she was " in any wise entitled ;" 
and this is all she really means, when she says that her son 
had accounted to her, for all the income, to her '^ entire satis- 
faction and approval." What else can she mean, when she 
declares that accounts had never been thought necessary? 
What, then, does the discharge, with these recitals, — drawn up 
here in Boston, before an account had been even called for,* 
and sent out to Mrs. Boott at London, and there executed by 

* The first call was by Mr. William Boott's letter to Mr. J. Wright Boott, June 
3, 1844. [B. App. p. 39.] The date of JMi's. Boott's release, in London, is May, 
29, 1844. 

57 



450 

her J in anticipation of such an account as might be presented, 
and for the purpose of passing a7ii/ account, that should be 
presented, — what does it amount to, more than a declaration , 
by Mrs. Boott, of her '' unhmited confidence" in her '•' beloved 
son John Wright Boott ?" How can Mr. Lowell, fairly, regard 
this as an assertion by Mrs. Boott, that j\Ir. Boott had not^ pre- 
viously, " expended or appropriated his mother's income, with- 
out her knowledge or consent V 

The fact, which I aver, is, that Mrs. Boott never knew any 
thing of the true state of her property, or of the use made of 
it, in that respect. I infer this from repeated conversations, 
which I had with her, before she left this comitry. Does Mr. 
Lowell mean to have it understood, that she knew, in 1830 
and 1831, the true posture of affairs, and that the position of 
her trust fund, then^ met her '^entire satisfaction and approv- 
al" ? Mr. Kirk Boott, certainly, did not think that she was 
aware of it. His letters prove that. It is true, that his letter 
of May 22, 1831, — which suggested an assignment of Mr. J. 
Wright Boott's property, but threw upon me the responsibili- 
ty of deciding what should be done, — agrees to "abide by 
and acknowledge," as his own act, whatever I might con- 
clude upon, ''provided my mother is made acquainted with 
the state of affairs, and acquiesces in any course, you will 
recommend." [Ante, p. 283.] But the course, I in fact adopt- 
of merely obtaining a transfer from ]\Ir. J. Wright Boott, in- 
dividually, to Mr. J. Wright Boott, as executor, of all the 
property, which circumstances would allow to be so transfer- 
red, dispensed, in my judgement, with the necessity of follow- 
ing out Mr. Kirk Boott's suggestion. He, afterwards, agreed 
Avith me, that there would be no advantage in communicat- 
ing the particulars of that transaction to ]Mrs. Boott : and the 
present inquiry relates only to the use made of the income 
of the property after that event. ^^Tien and how, then, 
did she first become informed, that her income was paying 
her son's debts ? She was told, generally, by Mr. Kirk Boott 
and myself, in 1831-3, that her property had been reduced 
and had become embarrassed, and that it was necessary for 
her to live with great economy. She did so, till she went to 



451 

England, in 1S36 ; after Tv^hich time a certain limited sum was 
annually remitted to her ; and that, I believe, to have been all 
she ever knew of her income, or of its appropriation, unless 
for the expense of an establishment, still kept up here by Mr. 
Boott, at the family mansion. This she was, of course, 
aware of, although she may not have known the amount, of 
the expenditure, nor from what fund it all came. But ap- 
propriation of her income to the payment of Mr. Boott' s 
debts, I believe to have been a thing she never dreamed 
of. Indeed, it is hardly possible that she should have been 
cognizant of such a fact, without its having ever been alluded 
to in her many confidential conversations with 3Ir. Kirk 
Boott, from whom I should have heard it, and with me, re- 
specting her pecuniary means and prospects. She, certainly, 
never was told by us of the cause of her narrowed circum- 
stances. By whom else could she have been told, before she 
left this country ? Does Mr. Lowell mean to suggest, that she 
became informed of the fact, while in England ? If so, it was 
by letter, of course. Let him produce the evidence, then : for 
he tells us. that the letters to members of the family in Eng- 
land, have been sent thence to him. and are in his hands. [L. 
p. 12S.] 

But Mr. Lowell endeavours to make Dr. Francis Boott, of 
London, a witness to this point, as follows : — 

" Whatever may have been the state of ^Ir. Brooks's information 
on this point, Mr. TVilliam Boott, at any rate, well knew the contrary ; 
for Dr. Francis Boott, of whose family Mrs. Boott has been for the 
last ten years an inmate, in a letter' to his brother TTilliam, dated 
April 15, 1845, expressly asserts the contrary. 

• No one,' he savs, ' who knew Wright, and was free to let his own 
generous sentiments have fair play, would accuse him of a dishonor- 
able use of his trust. 1 scorn the imputation. He might have advo- 
cated a greater economy ; but he had his jnother's sanction for the 
expenditure, year hy year ; and if she did not insist on saving, the 
fault is hers.' *' [L. p. 75.] 

Now Dr. Francis Boott, living in London from ISIS, or 
thereabouts, to the time of the writing of that letter, knew 
no more of the state of affairs here, except as it may have 
been represented to him by different members of the family. 



452 

and by Mr. Lowell, than his mother did. He knew nothing 
of the transactions known to Mr. Kirk Boott and myself. He 
knew nothing of Mr. J. Wright Boott's former pledges of the 
property, constituting the trust fund, which pledges, necessa- 
rily, entailed upon him this use of the income, as his only 
means of extricating the trust fund, by degrees, from those 
embarrassments. Dr. Boott could not have known either the 
exact amount of the income of the trust fund, or the par- 
ticular manner, in which it was appropriated ; and, conse- 
quently, could not have known whether his mother sanc- 
tioned the expenditure or not, unless he means that she sanc- 
tioned it by mere acquiescence, without knowledge or inquiry. 
Besides all which, I infer from these detached sentences of his 
letter, extracted by Mr. Lowell, without even the detached 
sentences of the letter from Mr. William Boott, which Dr. 
Boott intended to answer, that Dr. Boott was referring, in the 
passage above cited, to a complaint, from Mr. William Boott, 
of the unreasonable expense of keeping up an establishment 
here, mainly for Mr. J. Wright Boott's personal accommoda- 
tion, and not to a complaint of his appropriation of his moth- 
er's income to the payment of his own debts. 

This seems the more probable from the fact, that Mr. Will- 
iam Boott's complaints were confined to the former head, so 
far as appears by detached sentences from other letters, cited 
elsewhere, by Mr. Lowell. Thus we are told, '' Mr. William 
Boott, in a letter to Dr. Boott, of December 31, 1844, styles 
it ' the most expensive bachelor establishment in Boston.' " 
[L. p. 93.] Again, " Mr. William Boott himself, in a letter 
to Mrs. Ralston, of March, 24, 1844, says : ' The expense of 
the establishment, added to the interest of the money, for 
which it [the estate] would sell, and the saving in taxes, will 
make up about ^7000 per annum.' " [L. p. 94.] 

When Mr. Lowell gives out, therefore, in reference to Mr. 
J. Wright Boott's use of the income of the trust fund for 
his own debts, without his mother's knowledge, that Dr. 
Boott " expressly asserts the contrary," and cites, in proof of 
it, the foregoing language, extracted from a letter of Dr. Boott, 
I say, in answer, in the first place, that, if Dr. Boott intended 



453 

to make such an assertion, he made an assertion respecting 
a matter, on which he had no means of information ; in the 
next, that I suspect Dr. Boott's language relates to a different 
subject, and that he is made, by Mr. Lowell, to assert that, 
which he never did assert. 

But, on this point, and many others, it is impossible to see, 
with certainty, — from a few words of quotation, scattered 
about by Mr. Lowell, and said to be taken out of a corre- 
spondence, not exhibited, — the true meaning and application 
of such small detached portions, divested of their context ; 
while the opposite party is deprived, not only of the benefit 
of that context, to explain what is cited, but deprived, also, 
of all opportunity to cite any other portion of the same cor- 
respondence, which might make against Mr. Lowell's argu- 
ment. This seems to be systematic. And it is curious 
enough, that Mr. Lowell, in addition to the account books of 
Boott & Lowell, and to all the books and papers of Mr. J. 
Wright Boott, which have come to Mr. Lowell's hands, as 
his executor, should have contrived, also, through the influ- 
ence, which circumstances have given him over Mrs. Boott, 
and Dr. Francis Boott, and Mr. James Boott, at London, and 
Mr. Wells and his family, at Cambridge, and Mi\ and Mrs. 
Ralston, at Philadelphia, to have got possession of nearly all 
the confidential family correspondence ! — familiar letters, writ- 
ten, for the most part, in the strictest privacy of intimate re- 
lation, of which no copies Avere usually kept, at least on this 
side of the water, and of which he uses such little portions, 
only, as suit his purpose, in the manner above pointed out. 
How he has happened to obtain this confidence will be seen 
in the sequel ; and, fortunately, I have preserved some original 
letters, myself, from various members of the family. The 
use, which Mr. Lowell makes, of the family correspondence, 
by their permission, will compel me, reluctantly, to exhibit 
some of these letters in another part of this case. I shall do 
it abstemiously, but also fairly, by printing the whole of any 
letter, which I may find occasion to quote, or at least all 
that hears upon this controversy^ unless it should happen to 
affect third persons injuriously, who are not already impli- 



454 

cated. In that case, 1 shall still exercise a reasonable discre- 
tion in withholding that, which I may not judge to be strictly 
necessary for my own defence. 

I cannot conclude my remarks, on the subject of the mis- 
appropriation of Mrs. Boott's income, better, than by an ex- 
tract from my former pamphlet, the whole answer to which, 
given in the '' Reply," has now been shown to the reader. 

" To state the case in another form, let us look at it during a par- 
ticular period after the payment of these principal sums. The income, 
received by Mr. Wright Boott on the manufacturing stocks, from the 
time Mrs. Boott went to England, in 1836, to the time of the stating 
of this account, in 1844, could not have been less than $100,000. 
During that period of eight years it is known to Mr. Lowell, as well 
as myself, that the regular remittance to Mrs. Boott was $5000 per 
annum, amounting to about $40,000. The other $60,000 were ex- 
pended by Mr. Wright Boott here, and include, at least, $12,000 paid 
to Mr. Lowell himself for interest." [B. p. 107.] 

This, by the way, turns out to have been a great under-state- 
ment of the amount paid to Mr. Lowell. It does not include 
the $21,000 debt, and the interest upon it, which, it now ap- 
pears, Mr. Lowell held derivatively from Mr. Sturgis, and of 
which the greater part, at least, must have been paid off after 
1836. Instead of 1 12,000, paid to Mr. Lowell after this date, 
I should have said, nearer $40,000. My former remarks pro- 
ceeded as follows : — 

" Can these expenditures and appropriations, for the payment of 
his own private debts and the support of his own establishment, be 
said to be, in any just sense, a payment " to, or for account of" the 
widow ? Were they by her " order,'' or even, at the time, made known 
to her ? I presume Mr. Lowell will not pretend it, at least so far as 
payment of debts is concerned. Indeed, Mrs. Boott's release, exe- 
cuted at London, in May, 1844, states the fact, that there were no 
accounts stated and settled between them, by reason of ' the unlimited 
confidence' she reposed in him [Mr. Boott.] The account under consid- 
eration, therefore, is manifestly made up upon a mere theory, in this 
particular. All the income, Mr. Wright Boott received, was from the 
manufacturing stocks in two companies, whose affairs were intimately 
known to Mr. Lowell, and the number of shares held by Mr. Wright 
Boott in each, or by holders under him, from time to time, and the 
amount of dividends paid, ^vere easily ascertained from their books. 
His receipt of income, therefore, was to be reached by computation, 
with reasonable accuracy. His disposition of it, on the other hand, 



455 

was not to be ascertained, except so far as the payments passed 
through Mr. Lowell's own hands, because he never had either hooks, 
or vouchers, to shoiu it, as Mr. Lowell will not deny. 

But the theory of the account is, that all the income, which ever 
came to the executor's hands, belonged to Mrs. Boott ; that she tacitly 
permitted her son to use it as he pleased ; and finally, in May, 1844, 
bein"- applied to for a general voucher to pass such accounts as he 
might present to the probate court, she, without seeing the accounts, 
executed a general release of all her claims against him, whatsoever 
they might be, and so ratified all his appropriations of her own income 
to his own use. But, although Mrs. Boott may have had the right 
to give away the whole income if she pleased, — and her willingness 
to forgive a large debt to her son, for the sake of passing his accounts, 
may have been equivalent to that, — how does \t justify those previous 
appropriations to his own use, and to a very large extent, without her 
authority, or knowledge, at the time ? The party chiefly, or most di- 
rectly, interested, may have been willing, afterwards, to overlook it, 
from motives of affection, — but the fact is not the less evidence of his 
mismanagement, and unfitness to be an agent and trustee. It was a 
striking fact, which could not be overlooked by those who knew it, 
and were called upon to decide, for others, whether $46,000 more of 
trust money should be placed in his hands." [B. p. 107.] 

To this I ought to add, that I have no belief that Mrs. 
Boott has been made aware, to this day^ of the fact, that a 
single dollar of her income ever went to pay a debt of Mr. 
Boott's, unless by the intimations of Mrs. Brooks's letter of 
December 11, 1844, before referred to; [B. App. p. 46. and 
Ante, p. 161.] and these, as will presently be seen, were 
overborne, in Mrs. Boott's mind, by statements from Mr. 
Lowell. 

Respecting the amount of the ^' regular remittance to Mrs. 
Boott," which I speak of above, as $5000 a year, Mr. Lowell 
says a word, to which I have a word to say in answer. 

I extract, again, from the '' Reply," as follows : — 

" Mrs. Boott's income, therefore, during the thirteeen years in ques- 
tion, did not exceed SI 0,000 a year.* A reasonably large income, 
too, from a fund of $100,000. 

From this income, Mr. Boott remitted to his mother about S 6,000 
a year; not $5,000, as Mr. Brooks, with his usual accuracy, asserts. 
I have before me a precise statement of those remittances, and the 
average is between $5,900 and $6,000 a year." [L. p, 93.] 

* Mr. Lowell means, of course, after deducting the $2000, which he calls Mr 
Boott's. Even then he is short of the truth. The income from the ti-ust prop- 
erty, during that period, exceeded $12,500 a year. 



456 

Elsewhere, he cites a letter from Mr. William Wells, whom 
he avers to be a good witness to atfairs, which, I said, he was 
not acquainted with. In the letter cited, that gentleman 
writes, — ''nor does it look like a negligent manager, that, 
during the last eight years, [the letter is dated August 23, 
1844,] many of them so disastrous, he has been able to remit 
to his mother more than $7000 per annum, besides providing 
for the expenses of her house in Boston." [L. p. 56.] To 
this, Mr. Lowell feels obliged to append the following note : 

" Mr. Boott remitted to his mother in the seven years from Septem- 
ber, 1836, to December, 1843, £8810 sterling, which cost him, here, 
$43,037 02, or about $6,000 per annum; not $7,000, as Mr. Wells 
supposed." [L. p. 56.] 

Mr. Wells supposed it " was more than $7000," and " dur- 
ing the last eight years," which Mr. Lowell, while he cites 
him as authority, is obliged, thus, to correct, and does not 
correct so fairly as he might, after all. 

Now what I stated, concerning Mr. Boott's " regular remit- 
tance " to his mother, I stated upon no other information than 
that formerly given to me by Mr. John A. Lowell. If there 
was any want of ''usual accuracy " in my statement, the in- 
accuracy came from himself. But, I believe, in that instance, 
there was none. If Mr. Lowell would have the goodness to 
produce that " precise statement," which he had before him 
when he wrote, I believe the reader would find that the " reg~ 
ular remittance " was just about what I stated. But there 
was one year, when the total income, from all the stocks 
belonging to the executor, was not much short of $30,000, 
in consequence of an extraordinary dividend of $370 a share, 
made by the Merrimack Manufacturing Company. And in 
that, or the following, year, (Mrs. Boott having complained 
much of her straitened circumstances, living in London, 
with only $5000 a year, and with numerous calls upon her,) 
Mr. Boott found means to make an extra remittance, which 
may, perhaps, have brought up the " average^^ for the 
seven years, to about what Mr. Lowell states it. In general, 
five per cent, upon $100,000 was all that went, directly, to 



457 



Mrs. Boott, for her own expenditure. At least, so I was 
informed by Mr. Lowell. 

As to the figures, exhibited in the note above cited, to make ♦ 
out about $6,000 a year, they are, plainly, over-lapping state- 
ments. That is, the period, stated in the note, runs from 
September, 1836, to December, 1843, — neither seven years, 
nor eight years, but just seven years and a quarter. May it 
not serve to account for this, that, in the months of October 
and November, 1843, dividends accrued, of $30 a share in 
the Boston Manufacturing Company, and $100 a share in the 
Merrimack Manufacturing Company, which, upon the num- 
ber of shares stated in the account of 1844, amount to 
$8250 ? [Ante, p. 438, note.] This large sum was re- 
ceived by Mr. Boott, or by Mr. Lowell for him, within that 
last quarter of a year, which is thus tacked on to the pre- 
ceding seven years ; and not one word is said about the 
amount of remittance from December, 1843, to the date of 
the probate account, (November 18, 1844,) within which 
time I have, already, stated my reasons for believing that no 
remittance was made. [Ante, p. 444.] If Mr. Lowell would 
have the goodness to state the amount remitted from Sep- 
tember, 1836, to September, 1843, and thence to Septem- 
ber, 1844, we should better see the amount, for both seven 
years and eight years. At present we see neither. And if 
he would exhibit the " precise statement " itself, we should 
then know what the remitta,nce regularly and usually was, — 
if there was, in truth, any regularity in it, of which I know 
nothing, except as I have been informed by Mr. Lowell. If, 
as I infer, there was no remittance between December, 1843, 
and November 18, 1844, (the amount of previous remittance 
being, as we are now told, $43,037 02,) the average, for the 
whole eight years and two months, including the extra remit- 
tance above mentioned, was about $5300 a year. But does 
Mr. Lowell, ever, in this case, exhibit the whole of any 
thing, unless it happens, as he thinks, to make, wholly, in his 
own favour ? 

One other question I haye to ask of Mr. Lowell. I find, 
from the books of the two companies, that the aggregate of 

58 



458 



the dividends, which accrued, between September, 1836, 
and November, 1844, to the date of the probate account, on 
the thirty-nine shares of Boston Manufacturing Company 
and the seventy-one shares of Merrimack Manufacturing 
Company, held by, or for, Mr. Boott, as executor, amounted 
to upwards of $90,000.* Of this, we are told, $43,000 was 
remitted to Mrs. Boott. What did Mr. J. Wright Boott do 
with the other $47,000, besides maintaining himself at the 

7 



house in the square ? 



CHAPTEH XLV. 

THE ACCOUNT, COMPARED WITH OTHER EVIDENCE RESPECTING 
THE ESTATE LEFT BY MR. BOOTt's FATHER. REPRESENTA- 
TIONS OF A DIVIDEND OF $20,000. 

I have, thus far, treated the probate account upon the hy- 
pothesis that Mr. Boott had, originally, nothing to account 
for, beyond that, which he is therein charged with. 

I have treated it upon the further hypothesis, that he had 
really paid to the heirs, though not with equality, neither 
more nor less than $90,000, as the account claims ; and that, 
after crediting the amount of capital distributed, nothing re- 
mained to be accounted for, except the particular trust funds, 
required by the will to be kept up. I have even allowed this 
accountability to be reduced to the single fund of $100,000 
for Mrs. Boott, — which Mr. Lowell admits to have been an 
outstanding trust at the date of the account, — and to the in- 
come of that fund, so far as its investments are stated. 

Yielding, for the moment, all these points, and taking the 
account as it stands, I have shown, — and have shown it, gener- 
ally, by setting Mr. Lowell, in one place, against Mr. Lowell in 

* See the particulars in the note to the last chapter. The Ajnil dividend of 
the Boston Manufacturing Company, in 1836, ($30,) is. of course, to be excluded. 



459 

another, — that the account of 1844, with its pretended ''cash 
balance due to the executor," is, essentially, a fiction ; and 
that, so far from any thing being due, in 1844, from the estate 
to Mr. Boott, the truth is, that, after all other means, formerly 
possessed by Mr. Boott, were applied, so far as they would go, 
to the payment of his other debts, this trust fund of $100,000, 
charged, as it was, with those debts, remained deficient, in 
1831, by more than fifty per cent.; that, according to the ac- 
count of November 18, 1844, it was, still, deficient by the 
sum of $3715 ; and that the apparent improvement of its 
condition in 1844, compared with its condition in 1831, 
arises from two causes only ; first, that Mr. Boott had paid 
off a large part of his own debts, which encumbered the trust 
property, out of the income of the trust property itself ; and 
secondly, that the stocks are charged, upon a false principle ^ 
beyond their value at the time Mr. Boott first made them, 
specifically, trust property, by a proper transfer. But I have 
also shown, that, take which principle of valuation the read- 
er pleases, whether mine or Mr. Lowell's, the result is the 
same, except in degree. In either case, the trust fund was 
largely deficient in 1831, less so in 1844, but still deficient ; 
and that the difierence, in the amount of deficiency at the 
two dates, arises, solely, if we value the property at its al- 
leged cost to Mr. Boott, from the gradual payment of Mr. 
Boott's debts, out of the income of the trust property itself. 
This, surely, would be evidence enough of gross mismanage- 
ment, if I should not go a step further. But, in my former 
pamphlet, I stated my belief, that, — besides the $100,000 trust 
fund, which, in 1844, should have been entire, and indeed 
should have been much augmented by rise in value of the 
property composing it, and besides the $90,000 claimed to 
have been paid to the heirs, — there was, but for the effect of 
the release of 1833, which the ''Reply" repudiates, a large re- 
maining indebtedness to them, or some of them, for property, 
not appearing in this account, which had come to the hands 
of the executor, or for which he, being also the surviving 
partner of his father, had made himself justly chargeable and 
accountable. Mr. Lowell not only denies this, but contends 



460 

that, by distributing among the heirs $90,000, Mr. Boott, in 
fact, over-paid them by the sum of about $3700. [L. p. 40.] 
This, then, is a material part of the issue between us. If Mr- 
Lowell's premises were all correct, I have shown, t«hat, when 
connected with other facts, about which there is no room for 
dispute, they lead to the conclusion that no balance was due 
from the estate to the executor, and that the trust fund was 
deficient, in 1844, by at least |3700. This deficiency is 
proved by Mr. Lowell's own figures, made with reference to a 
different question, nothwithstanding that the fact is, in terms, 
denied by him, when that is the point, either directly spoken of, 
or incidentally alluded to, in the "Reply." [L. pp. 40, 59, 
195.] Such a deficiency, it is true, might have arisen, ac- 
cording to Mr. Lowell's premises, from the pretended over- 
payment of that amount to somebody. If, on the other hand, 
my views are correct, there was not only no such over-pay- 
ment, but there was a large sum, which the executor should 
have paid over to some of the heirs, and never did pay, as 
well as a much larger deficiency on the particular trust fund, 
than this account, after the most careful analysis, discloses. 

My view of the accounts, thus far, has taken, for its point 
of departure, the indisputable state of all the property held by 
Mr. Boott in 1830, according to the memorandum in his own 
hand-writing. Thence, it has all been traced and accounted 
for, up to the time of the probate account of 1844 ; and thus, 
by comparison with other proved or admitted facts, the ex- 
treme defectiveness and error of the account has been, in one 
mode, and to a certain extent, demonstrated. The remain- 
ing view, by which this will be further demonstrated, depends 
upon facts anterior to the disclosures made by Mr. Boott to 
me in 1830. This series of facts goes back to the time of the 
testator's death, in 1817, and even beyond that. 

Of the business transactions, prior to 1830, 1 had little con- 
temporaneous knowledge. My former statement, therefore, 
was composed of certain particular facts, which, though prior 
to 1830, I personally knew, and of the evidence, which had 
then come to my knowledge, of certain other facts ; from 



461 



all which I drew the inference, that, instead of $10,000, only, 
having become payable from the executor, to each of the 
heirs, before the release of 1833, as is claimed by the account, 
about $20,000 ought, before that time, to have been paid to 
each of them. The ''Reply " attacks the premises, on which 
this inference depends, by denial in part ; explanation, in 
part ; ridicule, in part ; and, in part, by a counter-statement of 
other alleged facts ; — all which I now propose to consider. 

In the first place, it is apparent that Mr. Boott, senior, at the 
date of his codicil, which was little more than one year before 
his death, estimated his own property to be sufficient for a 
much larger dividend, among his children, than Mr. Lowell 
pretends ; for, after having otherwise disposed of nearly 
$150,000, (including the mansion-house and store,) he gives 
the residue of his personal estate equally among his children, 
and then makes the following provision : — " As I have fixed 
the time until the 19th of March, 1818, before a division of 
my estate, according to my will dated Nov. 20, 1813, shall 
take place, yet my executors are, ivithin a year after my 
decease, to pay to my sons. Kirk and Francis, $10,000 each, 
in part of what is bequeathed to them, they paying interest 
for it until the 19th of March, 1818." [B. App. p. 9.] A cau- 
tious man, like Mr. Boott, senior, would hardly have directed 
the absolute payment of so large a sum, soon after his de- 
cease, as di partial payment only, and in addition to the with- 
drawal and investment, ''within a year," of $111,000 of 
annuity funds, if he had not himself believed that there would 
be an ample property, beyond all the contingencies of trade, 
to give his children much more than $10,000 apiece. Would 
he have done so, if he had not expected to leave them some- 
thing like double that sum ? 

In support of my allegation, that $20,000, or near it, exclu- 
sive of reversions, was the real dividend, which each heir was 
entitled to, another sort of evidence, relied upon by me, was, 
that Mr. J. Wright Boott, the executor, had repeatedly said 
so ; and, particularly, that he had volunteered that statement, 
personally, to me, respecting the portion of Mrs. Brooks, on 
the occasion of our marriage, May 3, 1821. 



462 

I understood, near the same time, from the late Mr. William 
Lyman, that like information, respecting the amount of the 
property, had been given to him by Mr. Boott, on the same 
evening, that being the date of Mr. Lyman's marriage, also. 
I afterwards learned from Mr. Ralston, that he had been simi- 
larly advised, at or about the time of his marriage, which was 
a year later. I knew from other members of the family, that, 
while living at home, they always considered themselves au- 
thorized by Mr. J. Wright Boott, to expend, if they pleased, 
$1200 a year, as representing the interest of their property. 

The information, which I received from Mr. William Boott, 
of his brother's statement to him, after his return from Europe, 
in 1827, and his consultation with me, grounded upon it, have 
been already mentioned. [Ante, p. 184.] I was also consulted, 
shortly before Mr. J. Wright Boott's disclosures to me, in 
1830, by both Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ralston, who had, long 
before, received $10,000 each from Mr. J. Wright Boott, upon 
the question, what they should do, and in Avhat manner they 
should approach Mr. Boott, with a view to obtain from him 
the remaining $10,000, which, they had been told, was due to 
each of them. I advised them to make a direct and personal 
application to him. They took that advice, and, as I was 
told, quoted me for it, in their interview with Mr. Boott. 
This, it may have been, (for I can conjecture nothing else,) 
which gave to Mr. Boott, at that time, the idea of a plot to ruin 
him, to which / was a party, conspiring with Messrs. Lyman 
& Ralston. So he stated to his brother Kirk, who told it to 
me. [B. p. 38.] The amount of promised dividend had, more- 
over, been frequently alluded to, before that time, in conver- 
sations between Mr. Kirk Boott and myself, respecting the 
family affairs. 

For myself, therefore, I want no other evidence to reduce 
the case to this alternative. Either $20,000 was, in truth, the 
nearest round sum, which represented the just dividend of 
each heir, (independently of distant expectancies upon the 
decease of parties then living,) or Mr. J. Wright Boott, with- 
out any imaginable motive, misled all his family into that be- 



463 



lief, by repeatedly telling them so, and permitting them to 
act upon that assurance. 

The particular instances of this kind of information, which 
I mentioned, in general terms, in my former pamphlet, were 
the statement, made directly to me, and the statement, made 
to Mr. William Boott. I did not, then, suppose it necessary 
to multiply instances, or to narrate all the circumstances at- 
tending those, which I cited. 

Those, of course, were all, that Mr. Lowell was bound to 
answer. I have already mentioned, that he takes no notice 
whatever of the representation made to Mr. William Boott, 
as reported by me, at second hand. Respecting my own 
case, he does not pretend to question that I intended to state 
the truth, according to my recollection and belief; but he 
undertakes to give an explanation of Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
statement to me, which he, perhaps, may have considered 
equally applicable to that made by Mr. William Boott, though 
it is apparent that this explanation, if not inconsistent with 
itself, is, at least, totally inconsistent with the further facts, 
which I now state. These may, or may not, have been 
known to Mr. Lowell. Such of them as respect payments 
and allowances, it would seem, should have been known to 
him, in consequence of his representing Mr. J. Wright Boott, 
when absent in Europe. [L. p. 28.] However that may be, 
I have no belief that any one of the immediate family will 
pretend to deny them. 

But, taking the case as it stood in my former pamphlet, 
what is Mr. Lowell's explanation ? Why, simply, that it is 
all a mistake. He pretends to think that I must have mis- 
understood Mr. Boott at the time, or now misrecollect him ; 
and that, if he spoke of $20,000, as coming to Mrs. Brooks, 
he meant to speak only of the share she would eventually in- 
herit, including her reversions, and not of a sum then paya- 
ble, or to be payable, during the life of Mrs. Boott. [L. pp. 
52, 53.] Now such a misunderstanding seems next to im- 
possible. This was not a mere casual remark, by Mr. Boott, 
likely to be misunderstood, or of which the true purport was 
likely to be forgotten; but a conversation of some length, 



464 



and formality, under circumstances calculated to leave an im- 
pression. Mr. Boott took me aside, on the evening of my 
marriage, for the purpose of entering into that conversation, 
and expressed himself to the effect, that he hoped, soon, to 
have the pleasure of paying over to me §20,000, for his sis- 
ter's share of her father's estate. He went on to remark, 
that the estate had, as yet, never been settled ; and that there 
were, still, some outstanding debts to be collected in England; 
that he did not know that he could absolutely promise quite 
•$20,000 ; that the amount realized, and the amount certain to 
be realized, shortly, would make a dividend of from $17,000 
to $18,000, at least, to each heir ,* and he thought it would 
come up to $20,000 ; but that this must depend, in a degree, 
upon the final winding up of certain affairs in England, which 
he hoped to see soon settled. A good deal more was said, to 
account for the estate's having remained so long open, and 
about the provisions of his father's will, appropriating a large 
part of the estate so that it could not be divided during the 
lives of the annuitants ; but this was the substance of the 
information, in what is material to this controversy. 

It was so pointed to present prospects, instead of expect- 
ancies depending on the lives of annuitants, that I, after- 
wards, grounded a ^:eceipt upon it, when $10,000 was paid to 
me, by note, expressly on account. This paper Mr. Lowell 
can produce, if he pleases. If I am right as to its tenor, it 
would prove, at least, that my recollections of the effect of 
the conversation are not of recent origin. But I, fortunately, 
have it, now, in my power to produce another " contempora- 
neous exposition," which must set that question at rest. It 
happens, that among the papers of my late father, an original 
letter, written by myself to him, about a fortnight after my 
conversation with Mr. Boott, has lately come into my pos- 
session, as one of the executors of my father's will. 

To explain the fact, X should state, that, shortly before my 
marriage, my father spoke to me respecting an arrangement 
of property, which he then contemplated making for my 
benefit. The amount, he said, he had not determined upon 
but would make it enough tP enable me to marry ; and, in 



465 



that view, he inqmrecl of me what fortune I was to receive 
by the intended marriage. I was obliged to confess my 
ignorance on this point. Immediately after my marriage, I 
left Boston, on a jom'ney, and did not see my father until 
my return. But, on my way home, I wrote to him, from 
Brattleborough, the letter in question, dated May 17. 

In that letter, bearing in mind my father's recent conversa- 
tion with me, I was led to allude to my subsequent informa- 
tion from Mr. Boott. In doing so, I took care, of course, as 
both interest and duty required, not to hold out to my father 
extreme expectations, but to inform him of that, which I 
thought I could count upon with certainty^ so that he might 
govern his own dispositions of property accordingly. 

The most of the letter is taken up with details of the jour- 
ney, and other matters, neither relevant to my present pur- 
pose, nor such as would interest the reader. A few sentences, 
however, in the following extract, (which contains all that 
bears upon the subject,) will be found highly pertinent. 

EXTRACT FROM AN OEIGINAL LETTER. 

[Edward Brooks to Hon. P. C. Brooks; dated "Brattleborough, May 17;" 
post-marked "May 19;" and endorsed, in the hand-Avriting of the kite Peter C. 
Brooks, "Edward's letter, rec'd May 24, 1821."] 

" Our next stage was Greenfield, from whence we came here. We 
parted company with our friends, the Lymans, at Northampton. 
They go, I believe, to Portsmouth, and will reach Boston about the 
same time with ourselves. 

On the wedding evening^ Mr. Boott spohe to me, for the first thne, 
on the subject of Eliza's property. The estate, it seams, is still unset- 
tled, owing to large debts due in England, which have been very 
doubtful, and are not yet, altogether, discharged. He says, from the 
disposition made of the property, by the will of his father, the 
children luill divide between Sl7,000 and S18,000 each; which, he 
thinks, WILL BE REALIZED BEFORE LONG. On my return, I shall 
have a more full conversation with him on the subject. 

We have heard nothing from any of you, since we left 
home," &c. &c. &c. 

The fm'ther conversation, which I expected with Mr. Boott, 
I never had, simply because he never offered me a fair open- 
ing ; and I soon fell into the family habit of considering him 
a person not to be obtruded upon in such matters. Nothing 



466 



more was ever said by him to me respecting a dividend, until 
about two and a half years after, when he handed me his 
note on demand for $10,000, expressly as a payment on ac- 
count of my wife's share, without a word of further explana- 
tion. And I heard nothing more from him about the prop- 
erty, until his disclosure of 1830, when I found it was all 
gone, except a remnant, not sufficient, under its incumbrances, 
to construct Mrs. Boott's trust fund. 

The foregoing letter, which has thus accidentally come to 
•light, will at least serve as further evidence "to show what 
Mr. Brooks's reminiscences are worth, after such a lapse of 
time." [L. p. 80.] If it does not positively prove the statement 
of Mr. Boott respecting a probability of $20,000, it at least 
proves, beyond question, that I understood him, at the time, 
as holding out the certainty of a sum, soon to be realized, and 
divided, that would give to the heirs, from $17,000 to $18,000 
each, instead of $10,000, which the account and the " Reply" 
pretend to have been a little more than the whole divisible 
share ! 

Now what can Mr. Lowell say to this ? He can no longer 
charge me with misrecollection ; or, at least, not to an ex- 
tent that can be of any avail for his argument. His case is 
reduced to one of possible misapprehension at the time. It 
would be pretty remarkable, certainly, if I had misunderstood 
Mr. Boott, so very widely, on so material a point ; for, whether 
I was about to receive a large sum of money shortly, or only 
at the remote and indefinite period of Mrs. Boott's decease, 
and whether the sum, which I was to have in hand, was to 
be something near $20,000, or only $10,000, was, at that 
time, a matter of no small importance to me ; especially since 
I had reason to believe that it would affect the amount of 
provision, which my father was proposing to make for my 
benefit. But it would be remarkable, indeed, if Messrs. Ly- 
man, Ralston, and William Boott, had all, severally, misun- 
derstood Mr. J. Wright Boott in just the same way, in other 
separate conversations, at other times. Still more remarkable 
would it be, if the misunderstanding, all round, had extended 
to the actual payment by Mr. Boott, and reception by several 



467 



of his brothers and sisters, of $1200 a year, or to the right 
on their part, to call, if they pleased, for that sum, as the in- 
come of their distributive shares. And most remarkable of 
all, that $10,000 should have, afterwards, been paid to me, 
and receipted for by me, expressly on account, and not in 
full, of the present distributive share, as, according to the 
'^ Reply," it should have been. 

When Mr. Lowell, therefore, in the face of these facts, sug- 
gests a misunderstanding, he is bound to make out, by clear 
extrinsic proof, an impossibility, or, at least, the highest im- 
probability, that Mr. Boott could, or should, have made such 
a statement, as I aver he did make ; or else to demonstrate, 
by positive evidence, that the statement was not true. 

Let us see how near an approach he makes to either branch 
of this alternative. 



CHAPTER XLVI. 

MR. Lowell's explanation of mr. boott' s statements. the 

$10,000 payment to me. the argument drawn EltOM 

the silence and acquiescence of the heirs. 

Mr. Lowell's mode of making out the probability of my 
having misunderstood Mr. Boott, is this : — 

"There can be no reasonable doubt, that, if Mr. Boott evei- men- 
tioned the sum of $20,000, he was speaking of his sister's share of the 
property, including the trust funds. 

Let us see if this is not probable. 

The house in Bowdoin Square had been appraised, only 
three years before, at $24,000. 



468 



Suppose Mr. Boott valued it, in 1821, $30,000 

The trust funds in his hands were then 111,000 

The property presently distributable among the heirs, 
exclusive of the SI 1,000 trust fund for his aunts, he 
probably valued at what it turned out to be, 75,000 

$216,000 



This, divided by nine, would give to each of the heirs, 24,000 

But Mrs. Brooks had already received her furniture, 

which ha,d cost certainly not under 4,000 



$20,000 
So that it is almost certain, that Mr. Boott was speaking of Mrs. 
Brooks's ultimate expectations, and not of the sum presently re- 
ceivable." [L. p. 52.] 

What a curious specimen have we, here, of the forcing of 
figures to meet a case ! 

First, the mansion-house is forced into the account, al- 
though this was no sum of money, to be divided, at all. 

Next, Mr. Boott is forced to value it at, precisely, $30,000. 
A little while since, when the object was to rectify Mr. 
Boott's position in 1830, and to exhibit for him an apparent 
excess of property, beyond all debts and liabilities, to the 
amount of $70,000, the reader has seen, that, in order to 
prove that case, Mr. Lowell, among numerous other assump- 
tions, valued the mansion-house at $46,000, though it was 
then, (1830,) really worth only about $30,000. [Ante, p. 254.] 
But, now, when the object is to extract the sum of $20,000, 
exactly, for Mrs. Brooks's share of the estate, including rever- 
sions, Mr. Lowell values the same piece of property at 
$30,000 ; and he values it at that, for the year 1821, though 
it had been appraised, but three years before, at only $24,000, 
as he admits ; for neither more nor less than $30,000 would 
work out this sum, just as $46,000 was necessary to work 
out the former sum. 

In the third place, Mr. Boott is forced, by Mr. Lowell, to 
value all the personal property of his father's estate, supposed 
to be remaining in his hands after having set aside $111,000 
for the particular trust funds, at exactly $75,000, although 
the very question at issue is, how much that property was. 



469 



Why at $75,000 ? Because, says Mr. Lowell, that is " what 
it turned out to be.^^ How so ? It '' turns out," by nothing 
hut the account of 1844, drawn up by Mr. Lowell, the cor- 
rectness of which is the whole matter in dispute. In that 
account, Mr. Boott is charged with f 186,000, only, as re- 
ceived, in money, for account of the capital of his father's 
estate ; from which, deducting $111,000 for the trust funds, 
there would remain, it is true, but f 75,000 for distribution ; 
and, of course, argues Mr. Lowell, Mr. J. Wright Boott, who 
knew the state of the property, must have valued that re- 
mainder, in 1821, at what the account of 1844 shows it to 
have been. But, lohen, does the account say, that he had re- 
ceived the money^ with which he is charged ? The conver- 
sation with me, fixed now by an original letter, was in May, 
1821 ; and at that time, according to the account^ Mr. Boott 
hadreceived only $116,783 95. [L. p. 38.] The residue of the 
admitted receipts is said to have come from Boott & Lowell ; 
at what date, it is true, the account does not tell us ; but the 
house of Boott & Lowell, we are told in the " Reply," did 
not begin its existence till 1822, nor wind up till July, 1824 ; 
[L. p. 28.] and the $70,000, (nearly,) said to have been paid 
over by that house, is declared to have come from its liqui- 
dation of the outstanding affairs of the former house of Kirk 
Boott &. Sons, in which the estate was a partner. [L. p. 38.] 
Yes ; Mr. Lowell ventm'es to draw so largely on the credulity 
of his reader as to invite him to believe, that Mr. Boott saw, 
with prophetic eye, in May, 1821, that, in the course of a future 
liquidation, by a future house, destined to be established in 
1822, he should receive, at last, through that house, from the 
unsettled accounts of his father's estate, (which could not, 
legally, have any concern with such a house,) something so 
near the precise sum of $69,389 99, that, when added to the 
five or six thousand dollars, which he is, then, supposed to 
have had in hand, beyond the trust funds, it would give him 
the exact sum of $75,000 for distribution ! 

" By all these assumptions, as curious as they are mani- 
festly unfair," [L. p. 91.] the arithmetic of the " Reply' ^ 
succeeds in producing an aggregate amount of property. 



470 



which, when divided by nine, (the number of the heirs,) 
gives, after ail, $24,000, instead of $20,000, to a share. But, 
in order to get rid of that extra $4,000, it is only needful to 
make a few more assumptions. Accordingly, it is asswned, 
that Mr. Boott meant to exclude the cost of Mrs. Brooks's 
furniture ,-^ and it is further assumed, " without a shadow of 
evidence," [L. p. 47.] that the cost of that furniture was, ex- 
actly, $4000 ! 

Was ever any thing, with arithmetical figures attached to it, 
and purporting to be founded on facts, so conjured up out of 
the regions of pure invention ? Yet, Mr. Lowell concludes : — 

" So that it is almost certain^ that Mr. Boott was speaking of Mrs. 
Brooks's ultimate expectations, and not of the sum presently re- 
ceivable." [L. p. 53.] 

If this were so, how came Mr. Boott to tell Mr. Lyman, on 
the same evening, that Mrs. Lyman's share, also, would be 
$20,000 ? There was no $4000 to be deducted for furniture, 
in her case. How came he to tell Mr. Ralston, in 1822, and 
Mr. William Boott, in 1827, that they, each, were to have 
$20,000 ? Mr. Ralston, at the time of the statement to him, 
had not received any sum whatever, in furniture, or in any 
other form ; and Mr. William Boott, if we may credit the 
" Reply," had received more than ten thousand dollars in 
Europe, on account of his patrimony. [L. pp. 61, 62.] 

But I am tempted, by Mr. Lowell's example, to tjy my 
hand at a little computation in this matter ; though, instead 
of resting my figm'es on my own conjectures, I shall rest 
them on his adm^issions. 

Mrs. Brooks was undoubtedly entitled, as a part of her 
"ultimate expectations," to one ninth of the trust 
funds ; and these, Mr. Lowell admits, above, were, 
in 1821, $111,000; of which, one ninth is $12,333 33 

=* This furniture was treated at the time, as a gift. It was not understood to 
have been purchased out of her funds ; and had not been delivered to her. Sever- 
al weeks elapsed before she began to occnpy the house, which had been furnished. 
The cost I never knew. It is probably over-estmiated by Mr. Lowell. 



471 



Brought forward, $12,333 33 

She was also entitled to one ninth of the mansion- 
house, which Mr. Lowell values above, in 1821, at 
S30,000. One ninth is 3,333 33 

She had received, on account of her share, in furniture, 

as Mr. Lowell assures us, 4,000 00 

And Mr. Boott paid to me, on further account, as Mr. 
Lowell admits, helow, with interest from the day of 
my marriage, (which was admitting it to be a sum 
,due on that day,) 10,000 00 



Total, 29,666 66 

Hence, if so small a sum as ^20,000 was a sum spoken of 
by Mr. Boott, must we not conclude, from Mr. Lowell's prem- 
ises, that ''it is almost certain that he was" not " speaking 
of Mrs. Brooks's ultimate expectations" ? For, if no more 
than $10,000 was to be the true cash dividend, as Mr. Lowell 
pretends, that sum, added to the other items, which Mr. Low- 
ell admits, would have made Mrs. Brooks's eventual share 
about $30,000, instead of $20,000, as the " Reply" desires to 
make it. 

But Mr. Lowell, adverting to his own demonstration above 
cited, goes on to remark : — 

" This view is confirmed by what subsequently occurred. Mr. 
Boott called upon Mr. Brooks, in December, 1823, and gave his note 
for $10,000, on account of Mrs. Brooks's portion, and a check for the 
arrears of interest from the day of the marriage." [L. p. 53.] 

That is all true, and just as I stated it. [B. p. 43.] He 
gave me his note, as Mr. Lowell says, " on accounV of Mrs. 
Brooks's portion, expressly, and took a receipt from me, in 
conformity. 

But Mr. Lowell asks : — 

"Why for SI 0,000? If he had paid him that sum in money, it 
would be intelligible enough why it might be inconvenient to pay up 
the whole at once ; but, as he was giving his note, no reason can be 
imagined, why, if Mrs. Brooks was entitled to receive S20,000, Mr. 
Boott should have given his note for only S10,000, and thenceforward 
regularly paid Mr. Brooks the interest on that sum." [L. p. 53.] 

Now will Mr. Lowell be good enough to tell me, fu'st, why 
Mr. Boott, making a payment, as executor, of a sum, which 



472 



Mr. Lowell admits was due from him, in that capacity, to an 
heir, should have given a note for it, at all ? The heir was 
entitled to the estate's money ^ not to Mr, BootVs note. If 
there was no money of the estate to divide, then there was 
no occasion to have volunteered a payment ; for it was all 
his own voluntary act, without the slightest movement, or in- 
timation, from me. If there loas money to divide, as execu- 
tor, why did he bring me his personal promissory note, ex- 
cept that he himself wanted the money ? And if he wanted 
•^the money, what did he want it for ? According to the 
" Reply," he was not a man to engage in speculations with 
other people's money ; '• he was a man of fortune, certainly 
worth, when I [Mr. Lowell] was his partner, at least $70,000." 
[L. p. Bl-I He put no money, we are given to understand, 
into any thing but his regular business, while that lasted. 
[L. p. 28.] His regular business, at this time, (December, 
1833,) was only as a member of the firm of Boott & Lowell. 
He had, long before, according to Mr. Lowell, put into that 
firm $40,000, which was all the capital he was to furnish there. 
[L. p. 58.] Why then did he not pay over, in money, the 
$10,000, which did not belong to him, and which, if he had 
not previously used the estate's money for some other pur- 
poses than those of the estate, should have been money then 
lying in his hands, as executor, for distribution ? The reader 
will presently perceive, both, why he did not pay money 
then, and why the note which he gave, in lieu of it, was 
sufiered to remain, unpaid, till 1826, when it became included 
in a partnership settlement betv/een him and his brother Kirk, 
who had become the ov^^ner of the note. 

But Mr. Lowell says he can understand, if the payment 
had been in money ^ " why it might be inconvenient to pay 
up the whole at once." Now, I confess, that is, precisely, 
what I can not understand, on Mr. LowelVs theory. True, an 
executor might prefer to distribute stocks, or some other spe- 
cific investment of the estate, in lieu of selling the stocks and 
distributing the money. But, if, according to Mr. Lowell's 
theory, Mr. Boott had not used, and was not then using, the 
funds of the estate, for any purpose other than the estate's 



473 



busiiiess, and the time had come for a distribution of those 
funds, I cannot understand, consistently with this theory, wliy 
he should not have made that distribution, either in money, 
or in the specific property, which he held for the estate. I 
cannot understand, why an executor ^ meaning to make a dis- 
tribution, should give his oion notes ; or, why, if his distrib- 
utable fund lies either in money, or stocks, it is not just as 
convenient for him, and a little more so, to make the whole 
distribution at once, in money, or stocks, as to make it half 
at a time. If, on the other hand, the executor had, inconsid- 
erately, employed the funds of the estate in trade, and had 
got them into an inconvertible, or unavailable, shape, and was 
personally liable for them to the heirs, I can then understand ^ 
not only why he should have wished to give his own note, 
instead of paying money, or delivering stocks, but, also, why 
he should wish to give his note for $10,000 only, rather than 
for $20,000, although $20,000 may have been the whole 
sum due and payable. Mr. Lowell says, for this " no reason 
can be imagined ;" but it seems to me reason enough, if there 
were no other, that the note was on demand, and, conse- 
quently, that he was liable to be required to turn out the cash 
for it at any moment, if I had chosen to demand it, instead 
of letting it lie, as I did, on demand, for two or three years, 
and until I exchanged it, in 1826, for Mr. Kirk Boott's note, 
at the request, and for the accommodation of that gentleman. 
But the true reason, in my belief, why Mr. Boott gave his 
note, was, that he had placed the estate's money, and his 
own, if he had any, where he could not control it. The 
true reason why he gave a note for no more than $10,000, (in 
addition to the fact that it was a note upon demand,) prob- 
ably was, that he had, previously, paid $10,000 each, in 
money, to Mr. Lyman and to Mr. Ralston. This he knew I 
must be aware of. There was no reason, except the incon- 
venience of it, why a like sum should not have been paid to 
me, in money, long before ; nor, indeed, why a larger sum 
should not have been paid to each of us. But, as I was, at 
that time, about going abroad, if he wished to make a pay- 
ment, and especially to make it by note, it was important 

60 



474 



that it should be done then ; and, if I had not exhibited a 
perfect willingness to take his note, he would, no doubt, 
being then in excellent credit, have procured accommoda- 
tion elsewhere, and paid over the money, so as to place me 
on a footing with Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ralston. But why, 
when he gave me a note for f 10,000, only, did he not say 
it was a payment i7i full^ if it was so ? Why did he say it 
was upon account 7 And lohy did he take a receipt in that 
form 7 

It might facilitate our understanding, perhaps, of Mr. 
Boott's motive in giving a note, if Mr. Lowell would tell us 
the exact date, which the account so strangely omits, of the 
executor's reception of that sum of $69,389 99, paid over to 
him by Boott & Lowell. Boott & Lowell began in January, 
1822. It was almost the last day of December, 1823, when 
Mr. Boott gave me the note. The partnership of Boott &> 
Lowell came to an end, and the firm was dissolved, in about 
six months after. If Boott & Lowell had, before the date of 
the note, paid him that large sum, (which with what he had 
previously received from the old firm, made up the whole 
distributable property, according to the account of 1844,) 
having so large a sum of money in his hands, as executor, 
why did he not give me the money, instead of the note ? 
Or, if Boott &. Lowell paid the executor so large a sum soon 
after the date of the note, — as the term of the duration of 
that house would seem to indicate, — how happened it, that 
Mr. Boott did not, then, take up his note 1 Or, how long 
was it, after the dissolution of the firm, that this great sum, 
in the hands of Boott & Lowell, actually came to the ex- 
ecutor ? Mr. Lowell can throw some further light on these 
matters. Nobody else can. 

Mr Lowell further remarks, — - 

" Mr. Brooks seems to have asked no questions on the subject ; 
nor does it appear that a lisp ever fell from him, or from any one of 
the eight heirs, on this subject, during the twenty-four years that 
elapsed before Mr. Boott's death." [L. p. 53.] 

As to " the twenty-four years, that elapsed before Mr. 
Boott's death," the reader will remember, that, in 1833, the 



475 



heirs had, vokintarily, discharged Mr. Boott from all existing 
claims, great or small. [Ante, p. 373.] Whether he had 
under-paid them, or not, after that, was wholly immaterial ; 
and if he had, (which, without accounts, they could not 
know,) it would have been, at least, very unavailing to com- 
plain of it. I have, besides, already explained why nobody 
asked questions of Mr. J. Wright Boott about the family 
property ; and I have proved the explanation, mainly, by Mr. 
Kirk Boott's letters. Why Mr. J. Wright Boott, unasked, 
did not wish to disclose particulars will, also, be intelligible 
enough, before I have done with the case, if it is not already. 
But what further says Mr. Lowell ? 

" Neither Mr. Wright Boott himself, nor either of his former part- 
ners, who must have been conversant with the whole business, nor 
Mr. Wells, nor Mr. Brooks, nor Mr. William Boott, in all my inter- 
course with them, and frequent conversations about the family prop- 
erty, ever hinted a suspicion that they had been under-paid. 

In my settlement with Messrs. Lyman & llalston, in 1831, I made 
it a prominent argument in Mr. Boott's behalf, that, from my own 
observation, I entertained no doubt that he had overpaid them. Tiie 
same opinion I have expressed to Mr. Kirk Boott, and also to Mr. 
Brooks and Mr. Williiim Boott, who have never, either of them, 
until these recent troubles, disagreed with me in opinion." [L. p. 54.] 

What conversations Mr. Lowell may have had with the 
other persons here referred to, what arguments he may have 
used, and what opinions he may have expressed, to them, is, 
of course, not personally known to me. But, if none of the 
gentlemen, named by Mr. Lowell, ever hinted a sus])icion 
that they, or somebody, had been under-paid by Mr. Boott, I 
beg to ask, why Mr. Lowell found himself called u]>on, so 
frequently, to express his opinion that they had been over- 
paid 7 

As to Mr. William Boott, if he never hinted a suspicion, 
that he had not received his full share, I think the reader has 
already seen, that, it was not because he had not good ground 
to entertain it ; [Ante, Ch. 20.] and, if it be true, that Mr. 
Lowell ever expressed opinions to that gentleman, which that 
gentleman did not choose to contradict, it could only have been 
because his brother's unfortunate management of the family 



476 



property was a topic extremely disagreeable to him to con- 
verse upon, and the particulars of Avhich, (never having seen 
the accounts,) he had no certain knowledge of. It, certainly, 
was not a subject, which, Mr. J. Wright Boott, himself, 
would have been likely to introduce to Mr. Lowell, or Mr. 
Lowell to him ; and, except when some urgent occasion 
called for an expression of opinion, or for resistance to the 
expressions of Mr. Lowell, all members of the family would, 
naturally, feel themselves restrained, and bound to silence, 
*^on this subject. Y/hat motive had they to attempt to con- 
vert Mr. Lowell ? — and, without accounts rendered, Vv^hat 
means had they of doing so ? 

Except in the case of the Lyman & Ralston settlement, in 
1831, and the release of 1833, no occasion ever existed, to 
my knowledge, likely to draw out the expression of opinions 
by any body, unless while the allowance of the account of 
1844 was under consideration, or shortly before that time. 
The case of Messrs. Lyman and Ralston is one, in which calls 
for further payment were much urged by them, as will pres- 
ently be seen ; and the reader will note, that Mr. Lowell is 
careful not to enumerate them^ among the persons, who never 
^^ hinted a suspicion that they had been under-paid." After 
that settlement, and before the family difficulties, which 
arose in the latter part of Mr. Boott's life, when, and with 
Avhom, could Mr. Lowell have conversed on the subject ? and 
with what parties, who had any cause of complaint? Seve- 
ral, perhaps most, of the heirs, I think it will appear, had 
received their fall |20,000, — Mr. Kirk Boott, and, I believe, 
Mr. Wells among them. Messrs. L^^man & Ralston, whatever 
they may have got by the settlement, assigned, as part of that 
arrangement, all their remaining interest to Mr. J. Wright 
Boott. Dr. Francis Boott has been in England since 1818. 
All the heirs in this country, moreover, released their claims, 
except on the trust funds, in 1833. Why was that, by the 
way, if nobody was supposed to have been under-paid ? Why 
did they think it needful to join in a release ? And why did 
Mr. Boott accept and record it ? This having been done, in 
1833, when questions arose, in 1844, about the accounts, all 



477 



that was then looked to were the integrity and security of 
the trust funds. The incongruities and imperfections of the 
account, in all other respects, were supposed to be covered and 
swallowed up by that former release, until Mr. Lowell ven- 
tured to give out otherwise, at first, in effect, to the coroner's 
jury, and afterwards, in plain terms, in his pampidet. From 
the moment when the account was agreed to and passed, 
that whole subject of controversy was done away, and sup- 
posed to be buried. It was buried ; and would have forever 
remained so, but for Mr. Lowell. But, while the question w^as 
open, who was there, of the heirs, I desire to ask, for Mr. 
Lowell to exchange opinions with? Mr. Kirk Boott had 
been long dead. Mr. James Boott, as well as Dr. Francis 
Boott, was in England. Messrs. Lyman and Ralston had no 
interest left. And, in respect to Mr. Wells, Mr. Lowell him- 
self tells us, '' Until after the passage of those accounts, I 
never exchanged a word with Mr. Wells, on the subject of the 
family troubles, nor indeed had I conversed with him on any 
subject for many years.^'^ [L. p. 54.] 

Nobody is left but Mr. William Boott and myself. Mr. 
William Boott's reserve on this subject I have already ex- 
pressed. While it was under discussion, I was the person, 
and, I believe, the only person, who spoke freely to Mr. 
Lowell ; for I was the only one of the heirs, living, who 
knew certain material facts ; and if Mr. Lowell means now, 
as he says, that, in our ''frequent conversations about the 
family property," I never hinted to him my belief that some 
of the heirs had been paid less than others, and less than 
they were entitled to, or that I ever agreed with him in a 
contrary opinion, I shall be obliged to say that Mr. Lowell 
is labouring under some '' old delusion ;" [L. p. 203.] or that 
his memory is '' signally treacherous ;" [L. p. 95.] or some- 
thing else, not much short of saying, that " the audacity of 
this passage defies all competition." [L. p. 69.] 



478 



CHAPTER XLVII. 

CASE OF MESSRS. LYMAN AND RALSTON. PROOFS THAT THE 

$10,000 PAYMENT TO THEM WAS ONLY ON ACCOUNT. 

I have mentioned the fact, that both Mr. Lyman and Mr. 
Ralston received from Mr. Boott, in money, $10,000 each, 
before the payment of that sum to me, by note, in 1823, and 
that they received it, not as a payment in full, but on account 
of the $20,000, or thereabouts, held out as coming to them 
upon the closing of certain accounts in England. Their re- 
ceipts, which ought to show this, are, of course, in IVIr. Low- 
ell's hands. I have also mentioned, that both those gentle- 
men, in 1830, before I was aware of Mr. Boott's unfortunate 
position, applied to me for advice respecting the best step for 
them to take to obtain the remaining $10,000 each, which 
they understood to be their due, and which, if due, they stood 
in much need of, in consequence of their embarrassments, 
growing out of the business of the foundry ; and that, by my 
advice, they made personal application for it to Mr. J. Wright 
Boott. This was followed, almost immediately, by the 
astounding disclosure, made by Mr. J. Wright Boott to Mr. 
Kirk Boott and myself, of his real pecuniary position. So 
much rests, of com'se, upon my statement. 

Opposed to this is the statement of Mr. Lowell, that, in his 
settlement with Messrs. Lyman and Ralston, in 1831, he made 
it a prominent argument, in Mr. Boott's behalf, that, from his 
own observation, he (Mr. Lowell) entertained no doubt that 
Mr. Boott had overpaid them ! [L. p. 54.] 

Now I do not doubt that Mr. Lowell, endeavouring to make 
the best possible arrangement for Mr. Boott, employed, on 
that occasion, his most plausible arguments, enforced by his 
strongest statements. That he succeeded in effecting a most 
advantageous bargain for Mr. Boott, I have already conceded. 
But did those gentlemen, (Lyman and Ralston,) after having 
been informed otherwise by Mr. Boott himself, agree to Mr. 



479 



Lowell's suggestion, founded upon nothing but his own 
alleged opinion that they had been overpaid ? Mr. Lowell 
does not pretend this. He proclaims, boldly enough, that, 
when he expressed such opinions to Mr. Kirk Boott, to Mr. 
William Boott, and to me, iDe never disagreed with him, 
" until these recent troubles." We certainly had no occasion^ 
before that time, to express our disagreement, whatever occa- 
sion Mr. Lowell may have found to favour us Avith his opinion, 
on a point, Avhich nothing but the accounts could settle. 
But, respecting Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ralston, the '' Reply" is, 
on this point, studiously silent. We are only told that Mr. 
Lowell argued to them, and assured them, that he enter- 
tained no doubt that they had been overpaid. We are not 
told what they said in answer. The inference is inevitable, 
that they^ having great occasion to urge just claims in a set- 
tlement, did not accede to his statements. 

To aid in the determination of this fact, as well as on other 
accounts, I should be particularly glad to see the papers con- 
nected with that settlement of 1831, all of which Mr. Lowell 
says he has, [L. p. 109.] and every one of which he is most 
careful to keep to himself. But, though not favom-ed with the 
light of those documents, we are not whohy destitute of 
contemporaneous evidence, sufficient, I think, to establish my 
main position, and to confute Mr. Lowell's. 

He must not be surprised, therefore, to find, that, knowing 
what I knew at the time of the sentiments entertained by 
those gentlemen, I infer, from all the evidence before me, that 
they not only did not admit that they had been overpaid, but 
insisted, that, at least, $10,000 more was then due and paya- 
ble to them from the estate, besides the $10,000 they had re- 
ceived, and besides the expectancies at the decease of Mrs. 
Boott ; that the justice of their demand was never denied by 
Mr. Boott, nor disputed by any body, unless by Mr. Lowell : 
that, if disputed by him, it was, at last, virtually yielded ; and 
tJtat a settlement loas made with them^ hy Mr. Lowell^ for 
Mr. Boott ^ on that very basis ! 

If I am wrong, in any of these inferences, Mr. Lowell can 
easily set me right, by simply exhibiting '' all the original 



480 



papers," which, he says, are still in his possession. [L. p. 
109.] He has stated the terms of the settlement on certain 
points; [L. p. 79.] not on this. He has shown, that, in 
payment for Mr. Boott's investment of at least $70,000, — 
which he asserts was not then esteemed a bad investment, 
[L. p. 90.] and which Mr. Ralston, undoubtedly, thought 
to be a tolerably good one, though subject to a large amount 
of debts, — 'Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ralston, for themselves and 
their associates, besides assuming the debts, transferred to 
Mr. Boott, all the reversionary interest (so Mr. Lowell states 
it,) of their wives, in the real and personal estate of Mr. 
Boott, senior, together with a cash payment of $7624, secur- 
ed by note. [L. p. 79.] But was it their reversionary inter- 
est, only, which they assigned, as Mr. Lowell pretends ? 
Their deed expresses otherwise. It conveys, in terms, not 
only all their title in the mansion-house, (which was rever- 
sionary,) but also, 

" all our respective shares, portions, and interest in all the funds, 

STOCKS, CHATTELS, AND PERSONAL PROPERTY OF AND BELONG- 
ING TO THE ESTATE OF THE LATE KiRK BoOTT, EsQ., Or held 

and possessed by any person or persons^ as trustees under his 

will, OR AS EXECUTORS THEREOF." [B. App. 22.] 

That is, it assigns to Mr. Boott all that was presently due 
from him as executor, as well as all that might become due 
in reversion. I was, myself, inaccurate on this point in my 
former pamphlet, and spoke, incidentally, of the interest 
assigned as if it had been only reversionary. [B. p. 4L] Mr. 
Lowell takes care, not only to adopt the error, but to confirm 
it by positive statement. 

In this connexion, let us inquire, how much, in value, was 
given, according to Mr. Lowell, in exchange for Mr. Boott's 
f 70,000 investment ? What was all the reversionary interest 
of Mrs. Lyman and Mrs. Ralston then worth ? We are told, it 
would amount, at the decease of Mrs. Boott, to f 16,000 a 
share, [L. p. 201.] or $32,000 for the two shares. That is 
true, provided we reckon Mrs. Boott's fund as good for the full 
$100,000, and the mansion-house as then worth the $46,000, 
which it brought in 1844. But, at the time of the settlement, 



481 



in 1831, the mansion-house was not worth more than $30,000. 
This brings down the reversionary shares, at the fair estimate 
of 1831, to less than $14,500 each, even without calculating 
and deducting Mrs. Boott's life interest, which was then 
about fifty per cent, of the whole value. So important an 
element as that, could hardly have been overlooked, by an 
agent so acute as Mr. Lowell, in such a settlement. If not, 
then the value, at that time, of the two reversionary shares, 
taken together, (calling the trust fund, as Mr. Lowell does, 
$100,000, and the mansion-house $30,000, at which I rate 
it, and deducting the value of Mrs. Boott's life estate in each,) 
could have been estimated at only about $15,000; and this, 
added to the alleged cash payment of $7624, would make less 
than $23,000 of actual present value, given by Messrs. Ly- 
man and Ralston, according to Mr. Lowell's representation, in 
exchange for $70,000 of value, put into the foundry by Mr. 
Boott. 

This would seem to be rather too liberal a discount for 
such an agent to have made, on the sale of so excellent an 
investment, to parties, who estimated it highly. But, if we 
suppose it to have been agreed that Mr. Boott, though he had 
paid in $70,000 to the joint concern, owed, at the same time^ 
as executor, $20,000 to his partners, personally, for moneys in 
his hands beyond what he had paid to them, so much of the 
money, put into the foundry by him, they would, of course, 
have considered to be, in reality, tlieir money ^ reducing Mr. 
Boott's own separate investment there to $50,000. That 
amount of investment, (liable to Mr» Boott's one third of the 
debts due from the joint concern,) would, in that case, have 
been the subject of the sale for about $23,000 of real value to 
Mr. Boott ; and if the debts of the concern were, as Mr. Kirk 
Boott states, $80,000, [Ante. p. 278.] one third of them, de- 
ducted from the $50,000 investment, would leave a sum very 
nearly balanced by the $23,000 of payment. All this, I ad- 
mit, may be mere coincidence. I do not pretend to know, 
now, what the fact was, although I may have known it at 
the time. But a settlement, on these terms, would, at least, 

61 



482 



seem to be a more probable bargain for Mr. Lowell to have 
made, than that, which is suggested by his partial disclosures. 

That Mr. Ralston did, for some reason, insist, that Mr. 
Boott had not furnished so large a portion of the funds, in 
their joint concern, as Mr. Boott at first contended, I have 
shown by Mr. Ralston's own letter of November 12, 1830, 
before printed. [Ante, p. 232.] And since there is no doubt 
that Mr. Boott had actually paid in, at least, $70,000, and since 
there could be no doubt, among the parties themselves, how 
much each of the other partners had actually paid in, it is plain 
that the ground, upon which Mr. Ralston so insisted, must 
have been this very fact, that a large part of the money, 
paid in by Mr. Boott, was no more than Mr. Boott owed, as 
executor, to Mr. Ralston himself, and to Mr. Lyman, and con- 
sequently was, to all intents and purposes of the partnership, 
their money. 

Notwithstanding the f 10,000 payment to each, which Mr. 
Lowell and the account of 1844 represent as more than all 
that was due, it is certain that a further indebtedness of Mr. 
Boott, as executor, to them, was well understood in 1830-31, 
not only by them, but by Mr. Kirk Boott and myself. This 
distinctly appears by the letters of that gentleman, hereto- 
fore exhibited, although Mr. Lowell pretends to show from 
another letter, which he produces, that Mr. Kirk Boott thought 
the balance of the account was the other way ! Before look- 
ing at that letter, let me remind the reader of a few short 
passages, bearing directly on this point, in the letters, which 
he has lately read, and he will see, at once, how the fact 
stands. 

EXTRACTS. 

[From the letter of Sept. 29, 1830, Ante, p. 276.] 

" I do hope R. & L. A^^ill not urge this claim, if it can possibly be 
helped." 

Now, will Mr. Lowell have the goodness to explain what 
claim Messrs. Lyman and Ralston had, to urge against Mr. 
Boott, except that he should pay them whatsoever was then 
due and payable from his father's estate in his hands ? Is not 



483 



this the very same claim, which Mr. Ralston and Mr. Lyman 
had lately invited Mr. J. Wright Boott to settle, after consult- 
ing with me on the subject ? Is not the existence of this 
claim the very circumstance, which Mr. Ralston alludes to, 
in his letter of November 12, in the same year, as one, which 
ought to satisfy Mr. Boott that he had not, really, furnished 
so large a proportion of the capital, used in their concern, as 
he had asserted ? [Ante, p. 232.] 

Mr. J. Wright Boott, himself, in the extract from his note 
to Mr. Kirk Boott, cited by the latter, refers to the same 
thing. 

[From the same letter, Ante, p. 275.] 

" If the children [meaning his wards of the F. Boott family,] are 
paid in full, and this claim of theirs also, [Lyman & Ralston's,] the 
whole burthen will fall on my poor mother, ^^ Sfc. 

The reader, on turning back to that letter, will note, that 
Mr. J. Wright Boott, instead of denying that this claim was 
well founded, tacitly admits it, and only prays that it may 
not be pressed, out of consideration to his mother ; and as a 
further motive to forbearance, suggests, that ''It is certainly 
for the interest of the heirs that the fund left to my mother 
should be made good." What can all this refer to but the 
unpaid balance due from the executor ? 

The " Reply," indeed, represents, that, in this letter, Mr. J. 
Wright Boott was " commenting upon the reluctance of Ly- 
man & Ralston to join in an assignment of the Mill Dam 
property, to secure the guardianship accounts;" and that 
there is " not a word about his owing any thing to the heirs 
beyond the trust fund.'^^ [L. p. 82.] What can be more 
absurd ? Will Mr. Lowell please to tell us, what Mr. Boott 
means by "this claim of theirs''^ on himl The proposed 
assignment, which Lyman & Ralston are said to have been 
reluctant to execute, was no claim of theirs on Mr. Boott, 
but a claim, which Mr. Boott is supposed to have been urging 
upon them. 

[From the letter dated " Tuesday Evening," Ante, p. 278.] 

" My own opinion is, that J. W. B. should, at once, assign all his 
property, first to secure F. B.'s heirs, and next the estate and heirs of 



484 



my father. The endorsements for R. & L. are no debts of his, [i. e. 
considering the amount he has already put into the joint concern, be- 
yond what they have put in,] and securing to them a just proportion 
[because payment in full was considered hopeless,] of what he may 
owe them as executor, is all, under the circumstances, they can claim." 
" J. W. B. cannot^ injustice to my mother, assist them." 

What does Mr. Kirk Boott mean by assigning the property 
to secure ''the estate and heirs " of his father, if he did not 
consider Mr. J. Wright Boott then indebted to the estate and 
its heirs ? — to each of whom, as Mr. Lowell admits and con- 
tends, he had paid, before this date, the sum of ''$10,000 
and upwards.^'' [L. p. 27.] And what does he mean, by 
" securing to them [Lyman and Ralston,] a just proportion of 
what he may owe them as executor," if he, in truth, owed 
them nothing ? 

[From the letter of May 22, 1831, Ante, p. 280] 

" The mortgage of the Mill Dam [Foundry] I presume is made 
entirely for L. & R.'s debts, and if the property is worth only half 
what they estimate it at, this will cover any demands they 
HAVE on J. W. B. AS executor. His reversion of the estate, 
which he says he will never touch a ce7it of, might be pledged as 
security for his endorsements, and in justice, perhaps, this is all that 
the R.'s can claim." 

Now, what demands had they " on J. W. B. as executor, ^^ 
if the $10,000 payment, which had been previously made, 
were, as Mr. Lowell pretends, all, and more than all, they 
were entitled to receive, during the life of Mrs. Boott ? Claims 
upon the annuity funds they could not have, until tlie trusts 
had terminated. And why does Mr. J. Wright Boott say that 
he will never touch a cent of his reversion, if he did not then 
owe to the other heirs, or to some of them, more than he 
ever hoped to be able to pay, unless by his reversion, so far 
as that might go, when it should come into possession ? 

[From the letter without date, wi'itten at the time a joint stock company was talked 
of, Ante, p. 281.] 

" This morning he [one of the Messrs. Ralston] proposed to me the 
following: — That Lyman should convey to R. R. [Robert Ralston, jr.] 
all his interest in the M. D. F. [Mill Dam Foundry] as well as any 
claim upon J. W. B. as executor, and his reversionary interest in the 
estate,^' 



485 



Mr. Lowell has omitted to notice nearly all the sentences 
above extracted ; but, on this last, he ventures the following 
remark : — 

"The above quotation very properly distinguisbes between the 
trust funds, which were in Mr. Boott's hands as executor, and the 
real estate, of which the reversion had already vested in the heirs, 
[L. p. 83.] 

This seems to be that description of nicety, which is com- 
monly called a quibble. Mr. Kirk Boott is, plainly, distin- 
guishing between nothing but present claims and reversion- 
ary interests, whether relating to real or personal estate. 
When he means to speak of " the real estate," that is, the 
mansion-house, it will be seen by his letters, that he uniform- 
ly calls it ^'the house in the square," or uses some other 
term, which plainly designates a house. When he speaks 
of '■'■ the estate," he always means the general estate, left 
by his father, and managed by his brother. What did he 
mean, for instance, in the citation just above, when he speaks 
of an assignment to secure, first, F. B.'s heirs, and " next, 
the estate and heirs of my father." Did he mean the man- 
sion-house ? Or, when he says, in a letter, which I shall 
presently cite, " You were authorized to use the estate in 
business ! " did he mean the mansion-house ? Mr. Lowell 
pays but a poor compliment to the understanding of his 
readers, when he resorts to such shallow expedients for hid- 
ing the truth. 

In the face of all this language, used by Mr. Kirk Boott, 
Mr. Lowell has the boldness to declare, that " not the slisrht- 
est hint is given in these letters, that Mr. Boott was indebted 
to the estate of his father, beyond the amount of his trust 
fund.^'' [L. p. 82.] As if there could, by any possibility, 
have been a claim, at that time, by Messrs. Lyman and Ral- 
ston, or by either of the heirs, on the executor, for any thing 
on account of an undistributable trust fund ! 

So, Avhen he comes to introduce the letter of Mr. Kirk 
Boott, which enclosed to his brother Mr. Jackson's letter of 
May 30, 1831, the comment is : — 



486 



" This letter is interesting on another account. It shows that Mr. 
Kirk Boott knew, and speaks of it as an admitted fact^ that Lyman & 
Ralston were indebted to Mr. Wright Boott, as executor, and not he 
to them. If they could secure him as indorser, and pay him the 
amount due to him as executor, this, Mr. Kirk Boott says, ' would 
entirely free you from all responsibilities.' How so, if Mr. Boott was 
then really owing the heirs of his father S90,000 and upwards, as Mr. 
Brooks pretends ? 

This is another contemporaneous exposition, to be offset against 
Mr. Brooks's reminiscences J" [L. p. 104.] 

•^ That he was " owing the heirs of his father's estate $90,000 
and upwards," is not my pretence, — as the reader will pres- 
ently see ; because he will see, that my pretence is, that sev- 
eral, if not most, of the heirs, had been paid $20,000 each, 
instead of $10,000. But the real difficulty, about exposing 
Mr. Lowell's imposition, (besides the multiplicity of facts to 
be made known,) lies in the extremely sinuous and slippery 
character of this ''Reply," which glides, rapidly and smoothly, 
over the surface of difficulties, and hurries the reader on, from 
one bold and captivating statement to another, before he has 
time to see where he is. The only mode of dealing with it 
is, to pin the author at each particular turn, and to hold him 
there, pinned, until his exact position has been defined, and 
the evidence examined. When this has been done, the point 
in question may, commonly, be settled against him with great 
ease, and, most commonly, out of his own book. That is 
what I propose to do, next, with the point above made out 
of Mr. Kirk Boott's letter. 



487 



CHAPTER XLVIII. 

PRETENDED PROOF, BY A LETTER FROM MR. KIRK BOOTT, THAT 
THE $10,000 PAYMENT TO MR. LYMAN, AND TO MR. RALSTON, 
WAS AN OVER-PAYMENT. 

The statement is, that Mr. Kirk Boott's letter, enclosing 
Mr. Jackson's letter of May 30, 1831, " shows that Mr. Kirk 
Boott kneiOj and speaks of it as an admitted fact ^ that Lyman 
4' Ralston were indebted to Mr. Wright Boott, as executor, 
and not he to them.'^ 

Does Mr. Lowell mean to stultify Mr. Kirk Boott ? The 
reader has already seen, that, in a series of letters, coming 
down to May, 22, 1831, that is, within ten days of the letter 
referred to in the statement above cited, that gentleman uni- 
formly spoke of it, " as an admitted fact," that Mr. J. Wright 
Boott was indebted to ^'' the estate and heirs " of his father, 
and, particularly, that Messrs. Lyman and Ralston held, and 
urged, unsatisfied claims upon him, as executor. Did he, 
really, mean to speak of the balance of account, between 
those parties, as being both ways, almost in the same breath ? 
Does he really do so ? 

How does Mr. Lowell suppose, (or mean his reader to sup- 
pose,) that Messrs. Lyman and Ralston could have owed any 
thing to the estate of Mr. Boott, senior, unless the funds put 
into the foundry were regarded as funds of the estate? 1 
have already shown that Mr. Lowell, in his pamphlet, en- 
deavours to make his readers believe that Mr. J. Wright Boott 
had not used the funds of his father's estate in that busi- 
ness ; [Ante, p. 257.] although he, formerly, not only admitted 
the contrary, but insisted that Mr. Boott was justified in 
that use of the funds, and even that I thought so myself at 
the time. In proof of this he cited a letter, written at some 
time in 1830-1, by Mr. Kirk Boott to his brother, containing 
this language : — 



488 



" By tlie provisions of the will, you were authorized to use the 
estate in business ; and while there is not, on any side, a shadow of 
suspicion that you have heedlessly squandered it, there can be no 
imputation on your honor and integrity, though it he in your hands 
greatly diminished. But this will not apply to F.'s children. We 
are therefore of opinion that they must he paid in full, at all events, 
and effected as soon as possible." [B. p. 130.] 

Mr. Lowell also cited, to the same point, a letter from Mr. 
Ralston to Mr. Boott, saying : — 

" No one, at that time, or during the whole negotiation subsequent 
thereto, ever impeached your honor and integrity, or doubted that by 
your father's will you were at full liberty to employ the capital in 
your hands in husinessJ^ [B. p. 130.] 

These letters, or one of them at least, as I formerly ex- 
plained, were written to soothe Mr. J. Wright Boott's agitated 
feelings, well depicted by his own strong language in a letter 
above cited. [Ante, p. 275.] The fact, believed by all of 
us, was, that the capital, put into the foundry by Mr. Boott, 
really belonged to the estate. Such a use of the estate's 
money Mr. Kirk Boott and myself considered an error of 
judgement, but not an impeachment of Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
"honor and integrity." It was true, that the will author- 
ized a limited use of the funds of the estate in certain mer- 
cantile business of a particular firm, but not in such a firm, 
or such business, as Mr. J. Wright Boott had in fact used 
them for ; and Mr. Kirk Boott, desiring to administer to his 
brother the utmost consolation, which truth would permit, 
alludes to this provision of the will as a species of excuse, 
straining it a little perhaps by the generality of his expres- 
sion, though he is careful not to say, in terms, that it author- 
ized the use of the estate's funds in the particular business 
of the foundry. 

That property, he and I agreed, must not be taken for an 
investment of the estate ; and we acted upon that agreement, 
as already shown. [Ante, Ch. 29.] But, when this question is 
raised by the " Reply," whether Mr. J. Wright Boott, as ex- 
ecutor, owed Messrs. Lyman and Ralston, for moneys due to 
them from the estate and not paid over, or whether they 



489 



owed him, as executor, for moneys advanced from the estate 
beyond what they were entitled to, it will be perceived that 
its solution obviously depends upon this alternative, namely, 
whether the $70,000, put into the foundry by Mr. Boott, 
should be treated as a private investment for himself, or as an 
investment for the estate^ made in his capacity of executor ; 
and that this question might be affected by the manner, in 
which Messrs. Boott, Lyman and Ralston should settle their 
partnership accounts. 

In the letters, above cited, from Mr. Kirk Boott to me, we 
have seen that he, uniformly, spoke of Mr. Boott's indebted- 
ness to his father's estate, and of the claims of Messrs. Lyman 
and Ralston on him as executor, as known and admitted facts. 
He was proceeding, then, on the idea, conformably to the 
understanding between us, that the money, put into the 
foundry, was to be treated as Mr. Boott's private investment, 
and should not be accepted as an investment for the estate. 
In that case, Mr. Boott would still owe, as executor, to Messrs. 
Lyman and Ralston, whatever their shares might amount to 
beyond the $10,000 paid to each of them. But if, on the 
other hand, the money put into the foundry by Mr. Boott, 
were looked upon as the estate's money, not borrowed by 
him for his own separate use, but intentionally put in by 
him, as executor^ by way of loan to the joint concern, and as 
an investment for the estate, in that case, and upon that 
theory, all the partners would owe the estate for that money, 
and whatsoever was due from the executor to Messrs. Ly- 
man and Ralston, for their shares of the estate, might, and 
would, be overbalanced by the larger sum due from them 
to the executor, for the moneys, which he, as executor, had 
invested in the partnership business. This will be found 
to reconcile, entirely, any seeming inconsistency between Mr. 
Kirk Boott's letters to me, and the letter to his brother, 
cited by Mr. Lowell, — the material part of which I will now 
extract. 



490 



EXTEACT FROM Me. KIEK BOOTT'S LETTER to Me. J. WEIGHT 

BOOTT. 

"J. A. L. offered, and offers, to go on to Philadelphia for the pur- 
pose of arranging with the Ralstons as to your indorsements and the 
mortgage; and I believe he would find little difficulty in settling 
them. 

The reversionary interest of Lyman & Ralston in the estate is, in 
fact, some security, and might be substituted for your name. The 
Milldam might be divided according to your respective interests, the 
whole deeded to L. ^ R. and a mortgage given hy them for the amount 
due you as executor. 

This would entirely free you from all responsibilities, and leave 
you free to make your election as to your future occupation ; and 
certainly not put L. & R. in any worse condition than they are at 
present." [L. p. 103.] 

The reader will now perceive, that the whole subject of this 
letter is merely a proposed scheme for a settlement with his 
copartners, whereby Mr. J. Wright Boott was to be extricated 
from the connexion. 

In the first place, he was to be relieved from his endorse- 
ments on their paper ; and, to facilitate that object, it is sug- 
gested, that Messrs. Lyman and Ralston might give, in lieu 
of his name, a pledge of their reversionary interests in the 
estate of Mr. Boott, senior, to stand as a substituted security 
to their own accommodation creditors. 

In the next place, the $30,000 mortgage, which covered 
Mr. J. Wright Boott's investment in the foundry, it is pro- 
posed should be discharged. This would leave a clear title 
'in that property to Boott and Lyman, (in whom the legal 
title stood,) subject to the adjustment of the partnership ac- 
counts between Boott, Lyman and Ralston, which would de- 
termine their respective equitable interests. 

In the third place, this Mill Dam property, which was the 
subject of their partnership account, is " to be divided accord- 
ing to your respective interests," — that is, when it should 
have been ascertained, by the settlement of their partnership 
accounts, how much of the common fund each partner had 
really contributed. This would involve the question, how 
much of the |70,000, put in by Mr. J. Wright Boott, repre- 
sented money due from him, as executor, to Mr. Lyman and 
to Mr. Ralston. 



491 



In the fourth place, this being settled, it is proposed that 
the lohole property should he deeded to Messrs. Lyman and 
Ralston, who would then, of course, owe Mr. Boott, either 
on his own account, or as the representative of his father's 
estate, the value of his interest sold to them, beyond Avhat 
he, as executor, previously owed them. 

And, finally, it is proposed, that this balance, which would, 
in that case, be due to Mr. Boott, should be treated as a bal- 
ance due to him in his capacity of executor, and should be 
secured to him, accordingly, by a mortgage of the foundry, 
to be made to him as executor. The balance, so ascertain- 
ed, would represent so much money of the estate, which 
Mr. Boott had chosen to borrow from himself, as executor, to 
employ in that concern ; — money invested by him in certain 
property, which the scheme supposes is to be sold to Messrs. 
Lyman and Ralston, and which money, it is thus proposed, 
should be treated as a loan by the executor to Messrs. Lyman 
and Ralston, Avhen they should have become sole owners of 
the foundry, according to the terms of the proposed settle- 
ment, whereby Mr. J. Wright Boott, both personally, and as 
executor, was to be withdrawn from the further hazards of 
the business. Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ralston would, thus, have 
been paid what was due to them personally ; and, for the 
residue of their purchase, they would have become mort- 
gage debtors to the estate, which would, thus, have become, 
so far, secured against loss of the funds subtracted by Mr. 
Boott for the use of the foundry. And this, Mr. Kirk Boott 
truly says to his brother, '' would entirely free you from all 
responsibilities," — meaning, of course, so far as they arose 
out of his connexion with the firm of Lyman &- Ralston, 
and his use of the estate's funds in the business of that firm. 

Bat this mere scheme for a settlement, by which, if carried 
into effect, Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ralston would have become 
debtors, on mortgage, to Mr. Boott, as executor, Mr. Lowell 
treats as if it were a fact, instead of a scheme, and boldly 
asks the reader to infer, from Mr. Kirk Boott's language, that 
he knew, and spoke of it as an admitted fact, that Lyman 



492 

& Ralston actually were indebted to the executor as such, 
and not the executor to them ! 

But Messrs. Lyman and Ralston would agree to no such 
terms. They would not consent to become substituted debt- 
ors to the estate, in the place of Mr. J. Wright Boott. The 
actual settlement, effected some months after by Mr. Low- 
ell, as described by him, was not on this basis. As before 
remarked, he does not choose to tell us all the terms of that 
settlement, and he does choose to withhold all the papers 
that relate to it. But how difficult it is, in the course of a 
long argument in a complicated case, to shut truth com- 
pletely out of sight, and keep it hid at every corner. 

If this general reflection should seem to be somewhat after 
the manner of the " Reply," I, at least, shall not follow it by 
pressing the poets into such inappropriate service. I prefer, 
for my own part, to adhere to the plain prose of so unpoetical 
a subject as a settlement of accounts, and to prove the false- 
hood of the "Reply" on this point, out of the "Reply" 
itself. 



CHAPTER XLIX. 

PROOF, FROM THE " REPLY," THAT LYMAN &> RALSTON RE- 
CEIVED, EACH, AN ADDITIONAL $10,000, IN THEIR FINAL 
SETTLEMENT. MR. KIRK BOOTt's LETTER OF 1826, AND 
THE COMMENTS UPON IT. 

Before Mr. Lowell was able to get through his argument, 
he, unluckily, thought it necessary to make a hasty answer 
to certain comments of mine on Mr. J. Wright Boott's extra- 
ordinary will ; which I had pointed out among the evidences 
of an intellect perverted, on certain subjects, into a mono- 



493 



mania. [B.pp. 81-89.] The circumstances are not material 
to repeat here, further than to remind the reader, that both 
Mrs. Lyman and Mrs. Ralston had voluntarily surrendered, 
in 1831, all their rights, present and reversionary, in their 
father's estate, to Mr. J. Wright Boott, in discharge of their 
husbands' debts to him, arising out of the settlement of 
their partnership accounts; that all the property, disposed 
of in Mr. J. Wright Boott's will of 1844, consisted of three 
reversionary shares of that estate, two of which he had 
acquired in the manner above mentioned ; and that, by his 
will, nearly the whole is left to Mrs. Ralston, — nothing to 
Mrs. Lyman, though the death of her husband had left her 
better entitled to such a provision than Mrs. Ralston. The 
" Reply," such as it is, consists in showing, that, on the final 
settlement between Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ralston, Mr. Lyman 
remained indebted to Mr. Ralston in a large sum of money. 
What was that to Mr. Boott ? What had it to do with the 
restoration to his sisters of their own patrimonial property, 
which had been assigned by each of them, with equal gen- 
erosity, to Mr. Boott, in payment of their husbands^ respective 
debts to him ? 

But I do not, now, propose to inquire into the validity of 
this excuse for the treatment of Mrs. Lyman. I desire, only, 
to point to a particular fact, stated by Mr. Lowell in this con- 
nexion, which bears on the question I am discussing of the 
indebtedness, and amount of indebtedness, of the executor, to 
Messrs. Lyman and Ralston, in 1831. 

I extract as follows : — 

"Mr. "William Lyman owed the firm on the 31st of De- 
cember, 1830, for money taken up by him for his 
family expenses and other purposes, $34,372 48 

And received a credit for Mrs. Lyman's share in her 
father's estate, coming from the trust funds, of 
$24,904 44 {being one half of the estimated value of 
Mr, Boott's share in the Foundery, purchased hy 
Messrs. Lyman Sf Ralston with the reversions of their 
wives) ; the value of each reversion, lohen realized, will 
he only about $16,000. When the partnership was 
finally dissolved, in April, 1833, the balance against 
Mr. Lyman, for personal advances to him, was 10,991 07 

which was forgiven to him by Mr. Ralston." [L. p. 201.] 



494 



There is a degree of obscurity in this, (whether accidental 
or intended the reader must determine,) concerning the occa- 
sion, upon which Mrs. Lyman's share was so valued. The 
general impression, conveyed to a cursory reader, probably is, 
that the Italicized passage, to which I desire to draw attention, 
relates, as its context does, entirely, to some settlement be- 
tween Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ralston alone ; and that this had 
no connexion with the settlement between them, jointly, and 
Mr. Boott, which occurred in September, 1831. The idea, 
so obtained, would be, that Mr. Lyman had received, /rom 
Mr. Ralston, a credit of the sum named, for Mrs. Lyman's 
share in her father's estate, irrespective of any allowance for 
it to, or hy, Mr. Boott, in his settlement with Lyman & Ral- 
ston. Closer attention will show, I think, that this could not 
have been the fact. 

The sum, named, is said to be " one half of the estimated 
value of Mr. Boott's share in the foundery, purchased by 
Messrs. Lyinan ^ Ralston with the reversions of their wives.^^ 
When and how was that purchase made ? Mr. Lowell him- 
self tells us that it was in the settlement, which he made for 
Mr. Boott with Lyman &. Ralston ; [L. p. 79.] and the deed 
from Messrs. Lyman and Ralston and their wives, by which 
their shares in the estate of Mr. Boott, senior, were conve^^ed 
to Mr. J. Wright Boott, fixes the date of that transaction to 
have been in September, 1831, and describes what was therein 
conveyed. [B. App. p. 22.] They, jointly, conveyed the two 
shares to Mr. Boott, in exchange for the estimated value of his 
interest in the foundry, which he conveyed to them. Of 
course, there could be no subsequent conveyance by Mr. and 
Mrs. Lyman of their share to Mr. Ralston, since it was already 
conveyed to Mr. Boott ; and if the course of dealings and ac- 
counts, between Messrs. Lyman and Ralston, was, afterwards, 
such, that Mr. Ralston, when he came to a final settlement 
with Mr. Lyman, found occasion to credit him for the value 
of Mrs. Lyman's share, (which, as well as Mrs. Ralston's, had 
been conveyed to Mr. Boott, in their joint purchase of the 
foundry,) that value must have been determined by the allow- 



495 



ance made for it by Mr. Boott, in the settlement with him, since 
it was the price of •' one half of the estimated value of Mr. 
Boott's share in the foundery," conveyed to Lyman & Ralston 
jointly, or according to their appointment, in exchange for 
what they conveyed to him. The quid pro quo seems to 
settle this. Mr. Ralston would hardly have allowed for it, to 
Mr. Lyman, half as much again as Mr. Boott had taken it for ; 
especially if Mr. Ralston, after allowing to Mr. Lyman all he 
was justly entitled to, was about to forgive to him a balance 
of $10,000 besides, as Mr. Lowell says he did. 

Here seems to be an important fact, then, concerning the 
settlement, in 1831, between Mr. Boott and Messrs. Lyman 
and Ralston, not stated by Mr. Lowell in the place where his 
''Reply" purports to give an account of the terms of that 
settlement ; [L. p. 79.] but which leaks out, incidentally, 
when he finds occasion to use it in a different part of his case. 
Indeed several facts seem to be involved in the statement. 1. 
That Mr. Boott's share in the foundry, when purchased by 
Messrs. Lyman & Ralston, was estimated at near $50,000. 
This corresponds, very closely, with my late inference from 
other premises. [Ante, p. 481.] 2. That it was paid for by 
the shares of Mrs. Lyman and Mrs. Realston in their father's 
estate; and so Mr. Lowell had previously stated, with the 
addition however, of $7624, said to have been paid, besides, 
by a secm^ed note, for some reason unexplained. 3. That 
Mrs. Lyman's unpaid share of the estate, (and that of Mrs. 
Ralston must have been just the same, for Messrs. Lyman and 
Ralston had received, each, a like sum,) was estimated, for 
this purpose, at a fraction short of $25,000. 

Now mark the consequences. There were nine such 
shares. 

Of course the whole proiperty^ of which a ^liare was to be 
ascertained, must have been estimated at about nine 
times S25,000, that is, $225,000 

But Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ralston had received, long be- 
fore, their $10,000 each, as Mr. Lowell admits, and as 
their receipts in his keeping will show, and the account 
of 1844 declares that such a sum had been paid to 
every heir, making 90,000 

315,o'0O 



496 



The total property of the estate, then, besides what the will 
gives, specifically, to Mr. Boott and to the widow, was 
estimated at about S3 15,000 

Of this, a part was the mansion-house, appraised in the 

executor's inventory at 24,000 



Leaving o^ personal property, which came to the execu- 
tor's hands, according to this estimate, 291,000 

If we deduct from this the amount of the particular trust 

funds, about 111,000 



It will leave for the sum, which was, or should have been, 

at some time, distributed among the heirs, 180,000 

This $180,000 stands in the place of the $90,000, claimed, 
by the account, to have been all that was in fact distributed, 
and a little more than all that was properly distributable. This 
$180,000, gives just $20,000 to a share, instead of $10,000, 
which Mr. Lowell pretends to have been the whole, and even 
more than the whole, of a distributable share. This makes 
the aggregate of the personal property, which had come to 
the executor's hands, exclusive of chattels specifically be- 
queathed, upwards of $290,000, instead of about $186,000, 
which is all the account debits to the executor for cash capi- 
tal received. The result of this statement conforms, almost 
exactly, to my former view, concerning the probable amount 
of the estate left by Mr. Boott, senior, and is totally incon- 
sistent with Mr. Lowell's view, as put forth in his pam- 
phlet, and totally inconsistent with the truth and complete- 
ness of the account in question. 

Let me repeat this in another form and more exact figures. 

Mr. Lyman received, on his wife's account, in 1821, $10,000 00 

In 1831, her remaining share of the estate, including re- 
versions, was estimated, in a certain settlement made 
by Mr. Lowell, at 24,904 44 



Her whole share, then, before the $10,000 payment, 

must have been 34,904 44 

Every heir had the same share, except Mr. J. Wright 
Boott, to whom the store in State^street was given in 
addition, and the heirs were, in number, 9 



According to this, the total property, in which the heirs 

had an interest, was 314,139 96 



497 



Brought forward, $314,139 96 

The only real estate, in which they had an interest, was 

the mansion-house, appraised in the inventory, at 24,000 00 

This makes the total of personal property, which the ex- 
ecutor had received, and for which he was bound to 
account with the heirs, sooner or later, 290,139 96 

But the account of 1844 acknowledges 
the receipt from Kirk Boott & Sons, 
of, only, $116,783 95 

and from Boott & Lowell, 69,389 99 



186,173 94 



Hence, there was received by the executor, if Mr. Low- 
ell's estimate was correct in 1831, but not accounted 
for in Mr. Lowell's probate account of 1844, 103,966 02 

This sum, it will be observed, is just about enough to 
cover the $11,000 trust fund for the aunts, which wholly dis- 
appears between the accounts of 1818 and 1844, and also to 
cover the additional $90,000 of distributable capital, (beyond 
what the account claims to have been distributed,) which I 
contend had been not only received by the executor, but also, 
mainly, distributed, so far as the shares of some of the heirs 
were concerned, though not in respect to others. 

Mr. Lowell, to be sure, speaks of Mrs. Lyman's share, so 
estimated in 1831, as ^^ coming from the trust funds^'^ and as 
being a '' reversion^ But how does this hold ? If he means, 
by '' trust funds,'''' not general funds in the hands of the ex- 
ecutor, but the particular annuity funds, only, they amounted 
to no more than $111,111 12; — while the nine shares, at 
$24,904 44 each, (the allowance for Mrs. Lyman's share 
after the $10,000 payment,) amount to $224,139 96. If 
we suppose the mansion-house included in the $224,139 96, 
as I presume it was, that, at its appraised value, would take 
off $24,000 from the total sum ; but this would, still, leave 
upwards of $200,000 for the estimated reversionary value, 
according to Mr. Lowell, of trust funds, which, as di present 
property, amounted to about $111,000 only. The mansion- 
house, instead of its original appraisal, may, perhaps, have 
been estimated, in 1831, at $30,000, — it was not worth more; 

63 



498 



but, if so, that valuation of the real estate would take off only 
$6000 more from the estimate of personal property, leav- 
ing f 194,000, still, for the sum, at which these trust funds 
of f 111,000 must have been estimated, according to Mr. 
Lowellj though then subject to a life-estate, having, by 
ordinary chances, a long course of years to run. 

This is impossible. It is obvious that something, besides 
one ninth of the mansion-house and one ninth of the annuity 
funds, must have been taken into account, to bring Mrs. Ly- 
man's outstanding share up to near $25,000, at the time of 
the settlement in 1831. Mr. Lowell says, himself, that her 
reversions, " when realized,^'' at her mother's decease, will be 
only about f 16,000. He gets at that sum by calling the trust 
funds $100,000 only, and calling the mansion-house $46,000, 
because it produced $46,000 in 1844, though nobody would 
have appraised it, in 1831, at more than $30,000. But, ad- 
mitting, as he does, that her reversions in the mansion-house 
and the trust funds, when realized, could not exceed $16,000, 
how came they, twenty years before they were to be realized, 
to be valued at $25,000 ? Why does not Mr. Lowell tell us, 
what else was estimated, besides these reversions^ to bring up 
Mrs. Lyman's share to near $25,000 ? Since he neither tells 
us how this was, nor shows the papers, which would explain 
the fact, we are, at least, free to speculate ; and I ask the 
reader to suppose that all the property, in which the rever- 
sions lay, was estimated at something like the following val- 
uation : — 

Trust fund for Mrs. Boott, $100,000 00 

Trust fund for one of the aunts, (for one at least was 

living in 1831,) 5,555 56 

Mansion-house, fairly valued, for that time, at not ex- 
ceeding 30,000 00 



Total reversionary property, to come into possession at 

the decease of the annuitants, 135,555 56 

One ninth of this sum is about $15,000 ; which corresponds 
with an estimate of a reversionary share made by Mr. Kirk 
Boott in 1826, as will presently be seen. [Post, p. 501.] 



499 



Yet, Mrs. Lyman was allowed about $25,000 ! What was 
that extra $10,000 for? What was it but Mrs. Lyman's 
share of moneys, in the executor's hands, already due and 
payable, but which had never been paid over ? For this 
was in 1831, and the $10,000, which the account of 1844 
asks an allowance for, had been paid to Mr. Lyman in 1821. 
If there is any truth, then, in Mr. Lowell's statement of the 
valuation of Mrs. Lyman's share of the estate, in 1831, it 
is certain, that Mr. Boott, as executor, had owed her, in 
1821, about $20,000. Of this, $10,000, only, was paid at 
that time, the other $10,000 remaining unpaid, till it was 
included in this settlement of 1831. 

Now I ask the reader to connect this unintentional admis- 
sion of the ^' Reply" with the fact before shown, [Ante, p. 
480.] that the deed of Lyman & Ralston, conveyed, in ex- 
press terms, present^ as well as reversionary, interests ; and 
to connect both with the evidence of Mr. Boott's statements, 
ten years before, that a divisible share would, probably, be 
$20,000. [Ante, Ch. 45.] It is certain that Mr. Boott's 
debt, as executor, to Mrs. Brooks, was, originally, as large as 
his debt to Mrs. Lyman. Is it not, then, certain, that / did 
not misunderstand Mr. Boott, when he told me, in 1821, that 
the estate was " still unsettled," but soon would be, and that 
I should receive, probably, $20,000, certainly something near 
it, for Mrs. Brooks's portion ? Does not Mr. Lowell, himself, 
make it certain, that Mr. Boott, did not intend to speak of her 
eventual rights and interests, but of a sum, which would be 
presently payable, as soon as certain outstanding affairs of the 
estate could be closed ? So I understood him at the time. 
So Mr. Ralston, Mr. Lyman, and Mr. William Boott under- 
stood him at other times, concerning their respective shares. 
So Mr. Boott meant to be understood, and so Mr. Lowell knew 
he meant to be understood ; since he himself, by his own show- 
ing, acted for Mr. Boott upon that understanding in 1831, 
when he not only admitted, but virtually ^a«c?, the debt, to 
that amount, in the settlement with Mr. Lyman, and, as may 
be reasonably inferred, in the settlement with Mr. Ralston 



500 



also, the two settlements being contemporaneous, and, in 
fact, parts of one and the same transaction. 

And so Mr. Kirk Boott understood, Avhen he constantly 
spoke, in a series of letters, cited above, of his brother's in- 
debtedness as executor, notwithstanding that $10,000 had 
been paid to all the heirs, except to Mr. William Boott, and 
that $20,000 had been paid to some of them, as the reader 
will soon see. And so Mr. Kirk Boott, also, well understood 
and intended, when, in the letter cited, and perverted by Mr. 
Lowell, to mislead cursory readers, that gentleman proposed 
to his brother a particular scheme, for the discharge of that 
remaining indebtedness to some of the heirs, and for the se- 
curity of others. 

Perhaps the reader will think, that I have, now, held Mr. 
Lowell pinned to this point long enough, and that I have suf- 
ficiently convicted him out of his own mouth, as I said I gen- 
erally could ! 



CHAPTER L. 

THE CHARGE AGAINST ME OF A DISINGENUOUS USE OF MR. KIRK 
BOOTT's LETTERS. HIS LETTER OF SEPTEMBER, 1826. HIS 
SETTLEMENT WITH MR. J. WRIGHT BOOTT. 

I must now exhibit another of Mr. Lowell's comments. 
He cites a letter of Mr. Wells, containing the statement, that, 
" He [Mr. J. Wright Boott] has, probably, given to all much 
more than they were entitled to receive from their father's 
estate ;" and proceeds thus : — 

" Mr. Brooks endeavours to create the impression that the late Mr. 
Kirk Boott viewed the matter differently, by quoting and emphasiz- 
ing the following passages from Mr. Kirk Boott's letter to himself of 



501 



February 8, 1826, above cited: 'As he [Mr. Wright Boott] is pre- 
paring to settle the estate and pay over the balances,' (p. 35) ; and 
again (p. 36,) 'As Eliza's portion will he paid you in a few months, 
perhaps you will be willing to take this loan.' 

" Nothing can be more disingenuous than the use that is made of 
these passages. 

" Mr. Kirk Boott had been a member of the house, and knew that 
Mr. Brooks had received no money from his brother ; he did not 
know, as Mr. Brooks tells us in the very next line, that Mr. Wright 
Boott had given his note to Mr. Brooks. 

" ' This led to a conversation when we met soon after ; and then, 
finding that I held Mr. Wright Boott's note for $10,000, he proposed 
to take that, as an equivalent, for his purpose, to money.' (p. 36.) 
' " Can any man doubt that the portion, which Mr. Kirk Boott re- 
ferred to in his letter, as soon to be received by Mr. Brooks, was 
this same 10,000 ? " [L. pp. 56, 57.] 

When I am charged with a disingenuous use of Mr. Kirk 
Boott's letters, and charged by Mr. Lowell, I do not think it 
necessary to answer the charge, after what has been shown. 
But I wish the reader to see another specimen of the various 
modes of using letters. I will first print the letter referred 
to :— 

LETTEE — KIEK BOOTT to EDWAED BEOOKS. 

jEast Chelmsford, Feb. 8, 1826. 

Dear Sir, — In making the following communication, I beg you 
will not consider me as preferring any claims or pretensions to your 
consideration, in consequence of our connection ; but regard it solely 
in the light of a business transaction between man and man. 

From recent communications with my brother, I find that our losses 
in business proved very heavy, and that he is more in advance for 
me than I expected. As he is preparing to settle the estate and pay 
over the balances, it is incumbent on me to come to a settlement with 
him ; and to do this, I must either dispose of the greater part of my 
manufacturing stock, or procure a loan. The latter, I think, is the 
preferable course, if I can effect it, as the disposal of any part of my 
interest in Chelmsford stock, would not only be highly disadvanta- 
geous in a pecuniary view, but would, at the same time, subject me to 
misconstruction, while I continue the Agent. I am, therefore, desir- 
ous to borrow S8,000, the interest upon which I will pay semi-annu- 
ally, and secure the principal upon my share of the estate, after the 
demise of my mother, or, if its present value can be calculated, I will 
make it over at its worth, at once. It will amount to something like 
$15,000, and perhaps, if real estate keeps its price, to something more. 

As Eliza's portion will he paid you in a few months, perhaps you 
may be willing to take this loan. If, however, you have or wish to 
make other arrangements, you will frankly say so, and I shall cheer- 



502 



fully seek the accommodation from some other quarter. I would 
rather negotiate with you than another, for it is not pleasant to expose 
one's poverty further than is unavoidable. Think the matter over, 
and if you can give me an answer at once, drop me a line, (marked 
private, to prevent its being opened in my absence,) or you can wait 
till I see you. Yours, very truly, 

Kirk Boott. 



This letter, it will be observed, was written in 1826 ; 
which was long before any suspicion of the integrity of the 
trust funds, or of any inability of Mr. J. Wright Boott to pay 
over to the heirs whatever they might be entitled to receive, 
had arisen. His embarrasments were not disclosed till 
1830. The losses in business, which Mr. Kirk Boott speaks 
of, had been incurred by a mercantile house, (Kirk Boott & 
Sons, No. 2,) in which Mr. J. Wright Boott and himself, and 
another brother, were the only partners. It was formed in 
March, 1818, and was dissolved January 1, 1822, upon the 
occasion of Mr. Kirk Boott's removal to Chelmsford. The 
advance, spoken of as made by Mr. J. Wright Boott for Mr. 
Kirk Boott, was partly in settlement of the business of that 
house, and partly on other accounts, as will presently be ap- 
parent. In December, 1823, that is, nearly a year after the 
dissolution of the house, and more than a year, I believe, af- 
ter Mr. Kirk Boott had, in fact, removed to Chelmsford, and 
while Mr. J. Wright Boott was a member of the new house 
of Boott & Lowell, (the successors of Kirk Boott &> Sons, 
No. 2,) Mr. J. Wright Boott gave me his note, as before 
mentioned, on demand, for $10,000, on account of Mrs. 
Brooks's portion. 

Now, Mr. Lowell's first comment is, that " Mr. Kirk Boott 
had been a Qnemher of the house, and knew that Mr. Brooks 
had received no money from his brother." How does that 
follow r How did the fact that he had been a member of 
a certain house, in 1821, enable him to know any thing in 
1826, respecting a payment in 1823 ? What had the house 
to do with a payment by the executor? And what, espe- 
cially, had a house, which came to an end with the year 
1821, to do with a payment to me in 1823 ? If the business 



503 



of the executor was transacted through a house, it must, 
after 1821, have been the house of Boott & Lowell, so long 
as it lasted. In that house Mr. Kirk Boott never had any 
concern. 

The next comment is, that '' He did not knoio, as Mr. 
Brooks tells us in the very next line, that Mr. Wright Boott 
had given his 7iote to Mr. Brooks ;" and, in proof of this, my 
statement is quoted, that, in a conversation, soon after the 
writing of the letter, Mr. Kirk Boott ^^ finding that I held 
Mr. Wright Boott's note for $10,000, proposed to take that, 
as an equivalent, for his purpose, to money." 

Now that, which Mr. Kirk Boott did not know, in 1826, 
(according to a fair interpretation of my language,) was, that 
I still held Mr. J. Wright Boott's note, given to me in 1823, 
payable upon demand. And that, which Mr. Lowell did 
know, was, that, instead of my having stated, as he afhrms, 
that Mr. Kirk Boott was ignorant of the fact that a note had 
been given , I stated, expressly, circumstances, which went to 
show his full knowledge, at the time, of the whole transac- 
tion. This appears by a preceding passage of my pamphlet, 
in which, after having mentioned Mr. J. Wright Boott's in- 
formation to me, at the time of my marriage, in 1821, (viz., 
that the estate ''was about to be settled very soon, and divid- 
ed among the heirs, and would give them $20,000 apiece,^^) 
I narrated the transaction of the note as follows : — 



" I neither made any inquiry, nor heard any thing more upon the 
subject, until about two and a half years after, when Mr. Wright 
Boott called upon me one day, which, by an entry in my books, I am 
enabled to fix as December 29, 1823, and handed me his own prom- 
issory note for the sum of SI 0,000, payable on demand with inter- 
est, and a check for SI, 683 57. The former, he said, was on account 
of my wife's portion in her father's estate, and the latter for interest 
upon the sum since the day of my marriage ; and he requested me, if 
I had no objection to taking his note, to give a receipt to him, as ex- 
ecutor, for SI 0,000 received on that account. This I gave without 
hesitation ; and neither made any inquiry, nor received any informa- 
tion, as to the expected residue. But I found, after Mr. Boott had 
left me, that the check was for compound, instead of simple, interest, 
which I thought wrong ; and I immediately wrote him, enclosing a 
check for the difference, as a mistake ; but he sent it back to me and 
refused to receive it. I at first intended to insist on his accepting it ; 



504 



but, on mentioning the occurrence to Mr. Kirh Boott, he advised me 
by no means to do so, as his brother would certainly take offence at 
it, and, as this was only a partial payment^ it might be corrected in 
the general settlement^ if I chose." [B. pp. 34, 35.] 

The state of Mr. Kirk Boott's knowledge, therefore, in 
1826, when he applied to me, in his foregoing letter, for a 
loan of $8000, appears to have been, that Mr. J. Wright Boott 
had paid me, in 1823, f 10,000, on accomit of Mrs. Brooks's 
portion, by his own note, on demand, with a check for the 
interest since my marriage ; and that note, being upon 
demand, Mr. Kirk Boott naturally supposed, must have been 
taken up soon after. In this state of information and belief, 
he writes the letter, which says, that Mr. J. Wright Boott '' is 
preparing to settle the estate^ and pay over the balances ;" and 
that this made it incumbent on him, (Mr. Kirk Boott,) to 
settle with Mr. J. Wright Boott, for larger advances and 
losses in business than he had expected. To enable him to 
make that settlement with his brother, he wished to borrow 
$8000, and says, ^^As Eliza'' s portion will he paid you in a 
few months^ perhaps you may be willing to take this loan," 

What did he, then, mean by the " balances " to be paid 
over, and the ^'- portion^"* to he paid to me? Mr. Kirk Boott 
knew very well, that $10,000 had been paid by the execu- 
tor, several years before, to Mr. Lyman, and to Mr, Ralston, 
in money, and, by the executor's personal note on demand, 
to me, for which receipts were given, discharging the estate 
pro tanto. He knew all this in 1830—1, when, we have 
seen, his letters uniformly speak of the claims of the heirs, 
and, especially, of the claims of Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ralston, 
to further payment. 

What " balances " could there be to '' pay over " to them, 
if $10,000 was a full share ? And how could he say that 
^^ Eliza^s portion^'' would be paid to me " m a few months^'* 
if he referred to the payment of the $10,000 due upon my 
note, of which I could have required payment on any day ? — 
and which, indeed, was itself payment of " Eliza's portion," 
so far as it ivent, since I had consented to receive it as such, 
and had discharged the estate for that amount. Or, since my 



505 



consultation with him, in 1823, was only upon the amount 
which had been allowed to me for interest, if he did not 
know that the principal payment was made by note, (as Mr. 
Lowell says I admit,) he (Mr. Kirk Boott,) must, in that 
case, have supposed that I had received |10,000 in money ; 
and, if so, I ask again, what did he mean in 1826, when he 
speaks of the balance of " Eliza's portion" to he paid in a 
few months ? 

The letter, therefore, of 1826, instead of being proof that 
Mr. Kirk Boott considered $10,000 to be a payment in full, 
is, in truth, a distinct declaration of his understanding, that, 
after a payment of $10,000, and after the furnishing of 
a house, (if that belonged to the patrimony,) there was still 
a further balance, coming, "in a few months," to Mrs. Brooks 
from her distributive share, sufficient to induce me to en- 
gage for a loan of $8000, and that other ^' balances " were 
to be paid over to other heirs, who had received ''$10,000 
each, and upwards," as the "Reply" admits. [L. p. 57.] 
And for what, but these " balances," due to somebody, did 
the heirs sign the release of 1833 ? I may conclude, there- 
fore, in Mr. Lowell's own language, with the addition of 
one word : — " Can any man doubt, that the portion, which 
Mr. Kirk Boott referred to, in his letter, as soon to be re- 
ceived by Mr. Brooks, was" not "this same $10,000," which 
had once, to Mr. Kirk Boott's knowledge, been paid by the 
executor, and for which I then held Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
private note 1 

The reader, looking back upon the various letters of Mr. 
Kirk Boott, and upon the comments, which have now been 
shown to him, will find himself fully prepared, I think, to 
settle this question, — Who makes a disingenuous use of these 
letters ? 

The letter, last cited, naturally connects itself with the 
settlement, then anticipated, and which, soon after, took 
place, between Mr. J. Wright Boott and Mr. Kirk Boott. 

The result of Mr. Kirk Boott's negotiation with me was, 
that, not being able to lend him the money he wanted, I 
transferred to him, instead, the $10,000 note of Mr. J. 

64 



506 



Wright Boott, as before stated, and received, in exchange, 
Mr. Kirk Boott's note for the same sum, which I held, with- 
out other security, until two or three years after his death, in 
1837. It was finally paid, at the convenience of his execu- 
tor, in the course of the settlement of his estate. Mr. J. 
Wright Boott's note, being on demand, was, of course, as 
good as money to Mr. Kirk Boott, for the purpose he had in 
view ; and when he came to a settlement of accounts with 
Mr. J. Wright Boott, it was included in that settlement, and 
given up to the promisor. This operated as payment, from 
Mr. Kirk Boott to Mr. J. Wright Boott, to the extent of 
$10,000 ; and my transaction, with Mr. Kirk Boott, had the 
effect of a loan of that sum to him, for his personal accom- 
modation. 

So far, all is clear. But, what was this settlement between 
the brothers ? What did it embrace ? The evidence of it is, 
of course, in Mr. Lowell's possession, as the executor of Mr. 
J. Wright Boott. He does not produce it. He prefers that 
we should still grope " in utter darkness and ignorance," 
[L. p. 72.] except so far as he may happen to enlighten us, 
by an occasional hint, always given in the course of an an- 
swer to some other point in the case than that, to which, 
for purposes of information, the reader would naturally look. 

The letter of Mr. Kirk Boott clearly describes the general 
object and purpose of the settlement, when it says, — '' From 
recent communications with my brother, I find that our losses 
in business proved very heavy, and that he is more in ad- 
vance for me than I expected. As he is preparing to settle 
the estate, and pay over the balances, it is incumbent on me 
to come to a settlement with him." That is, Mr. Kirk 
Boott's declared object was, to pay to his brother his propor- 
tional share of the losses in their former partnership business, 
and to reimburse whatever sums had been formerly advanced 
by his brother, for his accommodation. 

What was the amount due for these losses and advances ? 
My former inference, from such facts as had then come to 
my knowledge, appears, together with a part of Mr. Lowell's 



507 

comments upon it, in the following extract from the " Re- 
ply":- 

" The process, by which he [Brooks] arrives at this, is a very 
strano-e one. Not content with putting down the sum that Mr. Kirk 
Boott borrowed of him, for this specific purpose, $10,000 

" He adds to it the amount of Mr. Kirk Boott's patrimony, 
which he assumes without a shadow of evidence, and, as I 
shall presently show, without a shadow of foundation in 
truth, to have been lost in the business, and which he sets 
down at double its real value, 20,000 

" Finding, also, that Mr. Kirk Boott, about this time, trans- 
ferred to his brother twenty-one shares in the Boston Man- 
ufacturing Company, (shares, by the way, that had belonged 
to Mr. Wright Boott all along, and had been taken in Mr. 
Kirk Boott's name for a specific purpose, as I shall show, 
in 1823,) — finding, I say, this transfer, Mr. Brooks eagerly 
seizes upon the coincidence of dates, and puts it down as a 
reimbursement for these imaginary losses, 27,300 



S57,300 
" A more monstrous assumption was, perhaps, never presented, as 
the foundation of a serious charge." [L. p. 47.] 

Let us examine the monstrosity of this assumption. 

The first item, — the $10,000 borrowed by Mr. Kirk Boott, 
or, rather, his purchase from me of Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
note, by his own note for that amount, and " for this specific 
purpose," — seems not to be questioned by Mr. Lowell as 
one item, which went into the settlement. 

The second item, — the amount of Mr. Kirk Boott's patri- 
mony, — Mr. Lowell says I assume to have been included in 
what he calls "these imaginary losses" ''without a shadow 
of evidence," and " without a shadow of foundation in 
truth," and that I set it down "at double its real value." 

As to my assuming that it was included in the settlement^ 
Mr. Lowell elsewhere admits that this assumption is not ab- 
solutely "monstrous ;" for he says himself: — 

" It is not to he. presumed that Mr. Kirk Boott, himself a most ex- 
act man, made that settlement without receiving credit for the precise 
amount of his patrimony J' [L. p. 98.] 

How unfortunate, then, that Mr. Lowell should not have 
thought of producing the evidence of that settlement, that we 



508 



might see, at a glance, what " the precise amount of his pat- 
rimony " was ! It might have saved a great deal of discus- 
sion. The amount, at any rate, seems to be the only sub- 
stantial question, left open between us. Some shadows of 
evidence respecting it, I think, the reader has already seen ; 
and he will see more. Mr. Lowell, indeed, promises to 
show, that the idea of Mr. Kirk Boott's patrimonial share 
having been lost in former business of the house, is " with- 
out a shadow of foundation in truth." But he shows no 
such thing, by any evidence whatever, except his own as- 
sertions, as will appear in the sequel. I leave this point for 
the present, and until further facts have been introduced. 

The third item relates to the same twenty-one shares of 
Boston Manufacturing Company, which have been already 
spoken of as purchased by Mr. Kirk Boott, in 1823, for his 
brother's account, to equalize interests, held, or represented, 
by his brother, in the Merrimack and Boston Companies, and, 
which were, afterwards, taken by Mr. J. Wright Boott from 
his brother Kirk, in 1826, at $1300 a share ; at which rate 
they are charged to the estate in the executor's account of 
1844. [Ante, Ch. 38.] 

Now, the setting down of this item to the account of Mr. 
Kirk Boott, as a part of the payment for the ''imaginary 
losses" of the house, Mr. Lowell affects to regard as a " mon- 
strous assumption," for the reason that these shares " had 
belonged to Mr. J. Wright Boott, all along, and had been 
taken in Mr. Kirk Boott's name for a specific purpose, in 
1823," as he promises to show. What he does show, on that 
point, has been already examined ; [Ante, Ch. 38.] and, it 
will be remembered, that it appeared from Mr. Lowell's 
showing, when he found himself called upon to explain the 
charge of these shares to the estate, in the account of 1844, 
at nearly double their then market value, that Mr. Kirk Boott 
took them in his own name, during his brother's absence 
from the country, in 1823, and that he paid for them, at the 
time, by the sale of twenty-one shares of Merrimack stock, 
belonging to himself [Ante, p. 391.] 

All this, though done by Mr. Kirk Boott in his own name, 



509 



it is said by Mr. Lowell, was intended, at the time, (in 1823,) 
to be for the account of his brother, then in Europe. His 
brother returned in the course of that year ; for, we have seen, 
that, in December of that year, Mr. J. Wright Boott gave me 
his note for the ^10,000; yet, nothing further appears to 
have been done about these twenty-one shares of Boston 
stock, (said to have been bought for him in 1823,) till March, 
1826, when they appear to have been transferred by Mr. Kirk 
Boott to Mr. J. Wright Boott, individually. This, the record 
of transfer shows ; [B. App. p. 32.] and this, Mr. Lowell does 
not dispute. But, although the purchase of, and payment for, 
these shares, by twenty-one shares of Mr. Kirk Boott's Merri- 
mack stock, in 1823, is said to have been for the account of 
Mr. J. Wright Boott, it leaks out, in the course of Mr. Lowell's 
explanations, that, when the brothers came to a settlement of 
accounts, in March, 1826, the settlement was such, that Mr. 
Kirk Boott took to his own account the sale of his own shares 
of Merrimack in 1823, instead of charging them to his brother 
as a sale for his account. [L. p. 71.] 

This being so, I ask, what, on Mr. Lowell's showing, was 
the consideration to Mr. Kirk Boott, for his transfer to Mr. J. 
Wright Boott, in 1826, of the twenty-one shares of Boston 
stock, which Mr. Kirk Boott had purchased and paid for, in 
1823, by his own shares of Merrimack ? What did Mr. Kirk 
Boott get for his Merrimack shares ? Or, Mr. Kirk Boott 
taking that sale of Merrimack shares to his own account, as 
a sale for himself, how did Mr. J. Wright Boott pay Mr. 
Kirk Boott for the twenty-one shares of Boston, transferred 
by him to Mr. J. Wright Boott in 1826 ? Did any money 
pass between them, or was it a mere credit in account ? The 
reader will presently see that neither money, nor property, is 
likely to have passed, because Mr. J. Wright Boott was not, 
at that time, in a position to part with either, unnecessarily, 
and because he was in advance for Mr. Kirk Boott to a larger 
amount. I infer, therefore, now, from Mr. Lowell's inform- 
ation, connected with other evidence, as I did in my former 
pamphlet, with less evidence before me, that the price of 
these shares was credited to Mr. Kirk Boott in account ; and 



510 



I infer from Mr. Kirk Boott's letter to me, of Feb. 8, 1826, 
[Ante, p. 501.] and from the near correspondence of time, 
and the absence of any other subject matter of account 
shown by Mr. Lowell, that this transfer was a part of the 
general settlement between the brothers of their dealings, 
as partners, and otherwise, and that this credit was passed, 
in Mr. Kirk Boott's favour, as so much payment for the 
advances, and for his share of the losses, spoken of in that 
letter. I am confirmed in this inference by Mr. Lowell's 
omitting to show any other way, in which Mr. Kirk Boott 
was paid for the shares. 

Without, of course, pretending to know, or guess at, all the 
items of such an account, I may at least be allowed to con- 
jecture, till Mr. Lowell shows something to the contrary, 
which he has not yet done, that its principal features might 
be represented somewhat as follows : — 

A PRO FORMA ACCOUNT. 

Mr. Kirk Boott in account with Mr. J. Wright Boott. Dr. 

From 1817 For advances made by J. W. B. on K. B's. 
to 1826 account, and for K. B's. share of loss on 

the copartnership business of Kirk Boott 
& Sons, No. 2, as finally ascertained and 
settled by Boott & Lowell, S57,300 

Contra, Cr. 

By amount due from J. W. B. as executor 
of Kirk Boott, senior, for Mr. Kirk 
Boott's distributive share of the estate, 20,000 

Dr. Balance brought down for adjustment, 37,300 



1826 
March 1. 



March 17. 



Contra, 



Cr. 



By 19 shares Boston Manufacturing Com- 
pany, transferred at this date from K. B. 
to J. W. B., at $1300 per share, $24,700 

By J. W. B's. note of December 29, 1823, 
endorsed by Ed. Brooks to K. B. and 
now given up by him to J. W. B. 10,000 

By two more shares Boston Manufacturing 
Company, transferred at this date from 
K. B. to J. W. B. at $1300 per share, 
being in final settlement of this account, 2,600 



37,300 



511 



Now if this, or something like it, does not constitute the 
substance of the settlement, I challenge Mr. Lowell to pro- 
duce the papers, and let us see what the actual settlement was, 
and how it entitles Mr. J. Wright Boott, (which is a point I 
have di right to know,) to charge these twenty-one shares, in 
1844, to the estate, at $1300 a share, when they were not 
worth, at the time he so took them, more than $900 a share, 
[Ante, p. 393.] nor worth, in 1844, (when they were first 
charged to the estate, so far as appears,) more than §725 a 
share. [B. App. p. 55.] 

But Mr. Lowell, having the papers of Mr. Boott in his own 
possession, and also having in his possession the books of 
Boott & Lowell, (who were liquidators, as will be seen, of Kirk 
Boott and Sons, No. 2,) instead of producing proof of the 
facts, which those papers and books might disclose, prefers 
to argue upon possibilities and plausibilities, and upon his 
own assertions of extrinsic facts, many, if not most, of which 
I shall show to be erroneous, and endeavours to satisfy his 
readers, by these means, instead of the better evidence at his 
command, that I am under another mistake, "as usual," and 
that no such amount could have been due from Mr. Kirk 
Boott to Mr. J. Wright Boott, as I suppose. To this I an- 
swer, produce the proofs, which are in your keeping. 

The " Reply " suggests, however, that I must have been 
aware that making out so large an amount of loss proved too 
much, and that I, therefore, put in " a faint alternative," that 
this sum '' might have been, in part, a repayment for over- 
drafts." It is added : — 



" As the question of overdrafts has no bearing whatever on Mr. 
Brooks's issues with Mr. Boott, I shall only deal with the other alter- 
native. And this I have the better right to do, because it was Mr. 
Brooks's evident design to impress that view of the case upon his 
readers. For this purpose he emphasizes the word " loss " in the fol- 
lowing paragraph : — ' Was this the loss of one out of three of the part- 
ners? Or how much more than the others had that partner drawn 
out?' (p. 114.) 

" Observe what Mr. Brooks would have us believe. If Mr. Kirk 
Boott's losses were $57,000, those of the firm could not have been less 
than $171,000 ; and as, on the same page, he tells us that he cannot 
* perceive how Mr, Wright Boott could have had much more ' proper- 



512 



ty than Mr. James Boott, that is, ^ nothing except the dividend due to 
him from his father's estate,' — the inference is, that this loss fell upon 
that estate. Now that estate is not represented in Mr. Brooks's ex- 
aggerated estimates at over $180,000, beyond the trust funds and real 
property. Of course the whole, or nearly the whole, was absorbed in 
those losses. And yet he does not deny, that Mr. Wright Boott has 
-distributed among the heirs $90,000 (p. 109) ; that is to say, that, 
out of nothing, he has contrived to pay a sum of $90,000 ! And such 
estimates and inferences as these, Mr. Brooks and his learned and 
astute advisers gravely present to the world in impeachment of 
accounts, which his brother has presented, on oath, at the probate 
^ office." [L. pp. 48, 49.] 

Now, so far from alleging, that each partner's share of the 
mere loss, in the mercantile business of the firm, was $57,000, 
I expressly put, as a call for information, the alternative 
query, '' Was this the loss of one out of three of the partners ? 
Or, how much more than the others had that partner drawn 
out ? " And my object, in emphasizing the word "loss," was 
precisely the reverse of that, which Mr. Lowell affects to sup- 
pose. I emphasized, not for the purpose of leading the read- 
er to believe, that this large sum was only one third of the 
actual loss of the firm in their mercantile business, but to 
draw his attention to the fact, that it was too large to be 
probable, and to pave the way for the inquiry respecting the 
amount of over-drafts and advances on other accounts. I ac- 
cordingly spoke, in that immediate connexion, of the mon- 
eys of the estate, which the executor " had improperly used, 
and lost in that concern, [the partnership,] or had permitted 
the other partners to draio out of itJ' And I further said : — 

*' The share of that loss and over-draft^ which fell upon Mr. Kirk 
Boott, whatever it was, beyond his own dividend from the estate^ was 
undoubtedly made good to Mr. Wright Boott at the time, and in the 
manner above stated." [B. p. 115.] 

And the inference I came to was : — 

" The extent of loss, which seems to be indicated by Mr. Kirk 
Boott's settlement, so far as the data are known, and, even supposing 
him to have largely overdrawn beyond the other partners, is quite suf- 
ficient to account for a reduction of the promised dividend of the es- 
tate from $20,000 to $10,000." [B. p. 115.] 



513 



Instead, therefore, of having supposed, as Mr. Lowell pre- 
tends, a mercantile loss by the house, of $171,000, I suppos- 
ed, as appears above, that Mr. Kirk Boott's share of the loss, 
and his over-draft, (beyond the $20,000, which I considered 
him entitled to draw for his patrimony,) were, taken together, 
$37,000 only ; and how much of that was a share of partner- 
ship profit and loss, and how much was over-draft and ad- 
vance on other accounts, I did not pretend to determine. I 
only pointed out the fact, that there was margin enough in 
that settlement, to infer actual loss, sustained by Mr. J. Wright 
Boott for his share of the partnership business, sufficient to 
account for the reduction of the promised dividend from 
^20,000 to $10,000, in respect to those heirs, who had been. 
promised ^20,000, and who received $10,000 only, or less. 

To whom had it been promised ? To nobody, so far as I 
know, except Mr. Lyman, Mr. Ralston, Mr. William Boott, 
and myself. 

To whom had $20,000 been paid? In answer, I pray the 
reader now to note, that, although in my former pamphlet, I 
avoided speaking, as far as possible, of the money concerns of 
other members of the family, I believed, when I wrote, and 
I believed, at the time of the voluntary release of all my 
claims on Mr. J. Wright Boott, in 1833, and 1 believe still, that 
most of the heirs received, in one form or another, their 
full $20,000 each, of the estate's money. My belief is, 
that nobody was, eventually, left short of that sum, except 
Mrs. Brooks, — who had received only $10,000, unless the fur- 
niture of her house was intended as part of her patrimony,- — . 
and Mr. William Boott,— who had got nothing, except what his. 
brother had been pleased to pay for him in Europe, or else-- 
where, so far as those payments were a just and lawful charge 
upon his patrimony. All the rest of the deficiency in the ex-- 
ecutor's cash fell, as it happened, upon the annuity funds, — in 
which the heirs had a reversionary interest only,— and was 
made up, so far as it ever has been made up, only by applying 
Mrs. Boott's income to pay off the incumbrances of Mr. Boott's. 
debts, and in other ways to restore the capital of her partic-. 
ular trust fund. 

65 



514 



I cannot, from the nature of the case, be expected to pro- 
duce conclusive proof of the sums paid to, or for, the several 
heirs. The evidence is not in my keeping, nor accessible to 
me. But, I do not believe, that any one of the heirs will be 
found to deny the fact now suggested. More or less of evi- 
dence, touching some of them, has been, and will be, shown ; 
and I demand of Mr. Lowell, if he wishes "to elicit the 
truth," [L. p. 3.] that the receipts and other evidence in his 
possession, so far as they may go, of all payments to, or for, 
and of all settlements with, the several heirs, be produced, 
and we shall then be better enabled to see who is right, and 
who wrong, on this point. 

The truth, I believe to be, that Mr. J. Wright Boott, adopt- 
ed, practically, in the distribution of his father's estate, the 
principle of '' first come, first served." He, unquestionably, 
designed, and intended, to pay to all, what all were equally 
entitled to receive. They, who called for mom. y, while means 
of payment were at easy command, were permitted to take 
up sums, which, probably, amounted to their full shares, per- 
haps more. Mr. Wells, at any rate, in the letter above- 
mentioned as cited by Mr. Lowell, says, ''He, [Mr. J. Wright 
Boott,] has, probably, given to all^ much more than they 
were entitled to receive from their father's estate." [L. p. 56.] 
If for ''' a//," we should read " some," I might, perhaps, be 
disposed to adopt Mr. Wells's opinion, so qualified. What 
foundation there may have been for it, in his own case, he, 
at any rate, best knows. I think it will, ac least, appear, 
that he received his full share, after deducting the charges, 
made against him by the testator, for advances in his life- 
time, in addition to a large sum, which was forgiven. Dr. 
Francis Boott, it was always understood and said in the 
family, received, and took with him, $20,000, at the time of 
his removal to London, in 1818. Mr. Kirk Boott, and Mr. 
James Boott, while in partnership with Mr. J. Wright Boott, 
enjoyed the benefit, I think it will appear, of considerably 
larger sums, either taken up by them, or used for their in- 
dividual accounts, and for their respective shares of a joint 
account, in which all three were interested. These were 



515 



all, parties, whose occasions and opportunities for the use of 
large sums of money occurred before the affairs of the es- 
tate, and Mr. J. Wright Boott's own affairs, had fallen into 
a state of inextricable embarrassment, which, I have no doubt, 
his large advai ces to, and for the account of, some of them 
contributed to cause. I am confirmed in this by Mr. Low- 
ell's former remark, that Mr. J. Wright Boott could not have 
settled the estate without making his brothers bankrupt, — 
meaning, of course, some of his brothers. But, after the loss- 
es of Kirk Boott & Sons, No. 2, and of Boott 6& Lowell, 
had been encountered by Mr. J. Wright Boott ; after his over- 
advances to some of the heirs had been made ; after a course 
of great expenditure on the family account had been going 
on for years, without due regard to the source whence mon- 
eys, furnished by him, came, or to the proportion justly be- 
longing to each member of the family ; and after the estate's 
money had begun to go freely into the business of the foun- 
dry, — ^those of the heirs, whose occasions for large sums of 
money, and opportunities to control them, arose at that late 
period, if at all, received the whole of their supposed shares, or 
half, or nothing, according to the necessity of circumstances. 
Mr. Kirk Boott, it appears by his own letter, was a debtor 
to Mr. J. Wright Boott, instead of a creditor, in 1826 ; and 
the $20,000, due from the executor to him for his patrimo- 
nial share, became merged, of course, in the settlement of the 
larger sum, due from him to the executor, either in that ca- 
pacity, or personally ; for Mr. Lowell and I agree on this 
point, that, ''it is not to be presumed, that Mr. Kirk Boott, 
himself a most exact man, made that settlement without re- 
ceiving credit for the precise amount of his patrimony," 
[L. p. 98.] at least so far as it had been disclosed to him. 
Mr. James Boott, for a like reason, probably received his full 
patrimonial share in the same way. Messrs. Lyman and Ral- 
ston had each received $10,000, on account, in 1821 — 2, as 
I knew at the time. They had received no more in 1826 ; 
but they afterwards received, in 1831, their additional 
$10,000 each, in the manner Avhich has been shown, from 
the ''Reply;" [Ante, Ch. 49.] because, as purchasers of Mr 



516 



Boott's interest and investment in the foundry, they became 
debtors to him in a larger sum, against which the $10,000, 
due to each of them, was a proper offset in payment. They 
realized their full shares, provided the foundry was worth 
what they paid for it. But neither Mrs. Brooks nor Mr. 
William Boott, had any such means of paying themselves, 
after Mr. J. Wright Boott's embarrassments had arisen ; and, 
consequently, they were never paid, except to the extent, and 
in the manner before stated; not because Mr. J. Wright 
Boott had any indisposition to pay them, also, in full, but 
because he had no longer the ability left, having lost all he 
was ever personally worth, together with a large amount of 
the funds of his father's estate, in the business done by him 
after his father's death, which was all a losing business, with 
the single exception of the Chelmsford speculation ; and, out 
of that, he made little or nothing, for himself^ as will pres- 
ently be seen. 

And here, it may be proper to note, in passing, a fact, 
which will be found material in another part of this case ; 
namely, that Mr. William Boott and myself, were, probably, 
the 07ily members of the family, who really gave up any 
thing considerable by the release of 1833 ; although, for the 
satisfaction of Mr. J. Wright Boott's feelings, as well as from 
uncertainty respecting the true state of accounts, it was 
thought desirable that ail the heirs, who had not already 
released him, should join in that act. 

These statements anticipate, in part, the evidence, on 
which they are founded. For the reader will observe, that 
I do not profess to have personal knowledge of the facts 
stated. In the absence of proper accounts, I am, neces- 
sarily, driven to inferences, from such evidence as I show, 
and the reader must judge, as we proceed, how far they are 
well founded, bearing in mind that Mr. Lowell has, in his 
own hands, to a great, if not to the fullest extent, the means 
of either verifying or contradicting them, conclusively. At 
present, I call the reader's attention to this : that Mr. Lowell 
waives and evades^ in his " Reply," all statement and inquiry 
about over-drafts by Mr. Kirk Boott. I call attention, also, 



517 



to the shallowness of the sophism, on which he argues that 
my premises, or assumptions, if he pleases, suppose a loss in 
trade of $171,000 by the house, in which Mr. Kirk Boott was 
a partner ; and that, consequently, when I admit payments to 
the heirs of as much, in the aggregate, as the account of 
1844 claims to have been paid to them, I say, in effect, of 
Mr. J. Wright Boott, that " out of nothing he has contrived 
to pay a sum of $90,000." 

My belief, as I state it, is, that, out of the funds of his 
father's estate, he paid and lent, to some of the heirs, more 
than double that sum ; that he got back what he could, 
beyond the $20,000, which each, who had more in his hands, 
was allowed to retain as a dividend from the estate ; that he 
was never worth much, in his own right, beyond his patri- 
mony ; that, whatever he was worth, he lost in trade and 
speculation, within a few years after his father's death ; that 
he, also, embarked his father's estate, irregularly, in that kind 
of business ; and that the unfortunate consequence was the 
deficit, which has been shown to have existed, in 1830 — 31, 
in the annuity funds established by his father's will, and a 
further deficit upon the patrimonial shares of such of the 
heirs as had not previously received their $20,000 each, except 
in the case of Lyman & Ralston, who, through a subsequent 
settlement of their partnership connexion with Mr. J. Wright 
Boott, obtained, nominally at least, the balance due to them 
from him as executor, which balance was properly included 
in that settlement. 

This view of affairs, it will be seen, supposes a final deficit 
of twenty or thirty thousand dollars only, beyond the deficit 
of nearly $70,000, which has heretofore been shown, in the 
annuity funds, as affairs stood in 1831. [Ante, p. 292.] The 
great error, therefore, of the account, according to my view 
of it, consists in the total omission of something like 
, $100,000 of assets, which had come to the executor's hands, 
and in the total omission, also, of something like $70,000, 
paid away to certain of the heirs. The receipt of such a simi 
could not have been stated in the accounts, without showing 
what was done with it ; and that could not have been stated, 



518 



without disclosing, on the face of the account, great inequal- 
ities of distribution, — inequalities never intended by Mr. 
Boott, but which circumstances had rendered unavoidable. 

This view coincides, also, with the excuse, above alluded 
to as formerly made by Mr. Lowell, for Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
omission to settle the estate, in the earlier years of his exec- 
utorship ; namely, that he could not then have done so, 
without making his brothers bankrupt. The probable truth 
of this suggestion, in respect to some of his brothers, will 
presently appear. 



CHAPTER LI 



TRANSACTIONS. 



The time has now come, when it is proper to look into 
the history of Mr. J. Wright Boott's connexion with several 
mercantile houses, and of his principal pecuniary transac- 
tions, so far as they have yet been disclosed or discovered, 
leading to the state of afiairs, shown by his own written 
statement, and by the admissions of the " Reply," to have 
existed in 1830. 

First, for the undisputed facts, and facts proved by clear 
written evidence. 

Mr. J. Wright Boott was in partnership with his father 
at the time of the death of the latter in January, 1817. 
They were importers of British goods, under the firm of 
Kirk Boott 6& Sons, which, for distinction's sake, I call Kirk 
Boott & Sons, No. 1. The business of that firm was requir- 
ed, by the will, to terminate March 19, 1818, up to which 
time it was to be carried on as before, notwithstanding the 
testator's death, except that so much of capital as might be 



519 



needful to construct the annuity funds, for Mrs. Boott and the 
testator's sisters, was to be withdrawn from trade and invest- 
ed for that purpose. All this appears by the will ; [B. App. 
pp. 5 — 9.] and Mr. Lowell is also a voucher for it. [L. pp. 
22—25.] 

Upon the expiration of the old house, by its limitation un- 
der the will, a new one was formed, consisting of Mr. J. 
Wright Boott, Mr. Kirk Boott, and Mr. James Boott, another 
brother then just of age, under the same firm, which I distin- 
guish as Kirk Boott 6& Sons, No. 2. 

This is admitted by Mr. Lowell ; [L. p. 24.] and the fol- 
lowing notice of the dissolution of the old, and the formation 
of the new, copartnership may be found in the Boston Daily 
Advertiser of that time, under the date of April 1, 1818. 

Notice. 

" The copartnership heretofore existing under the firm of Kirk 
Boott & Sons is dissolved ; settlements to be made with John W» 
Boott. The business will be continued by the subscribers, under the 
firm of Kirk Boott & Sons. 

J. W. Boott. 

Kirk Boott. 

James Boott." 

The house of Kirk Boott and Sons, No. 2, lasted until 
Mr. Kirk Boott's removal to Chelmsford, (now Lowell,) at 
the close of the year 1821; and a new house was then 
formed, [L. p. 27.] as appears by the following newspaper 
announcement, under date of January 1, 1822 : — 

Notice. 

"The copartnership, heretofore existing between the subscribers, 
under the firm of Kirk Boott & Sons, is this day dissolved by mutual 
consent. All persons indebted to the late firm are required to make 
immediate payment, and all persons having demands to present them, 
to J. W. Boott^ or J. A. Lowell, who are duly authorized to settle 
them at No. 30 State street. 

" The business of the late house will be continued at the same 
place, under the firm of Boott ^ Lowell. 

J. W. Boott. 

Kirk Boott. 

James Boott. 

J. A. Lowell." 



620 



The house of Boott & Lowell terminated July 1, 1824, as 
we are told, [L. p. 28.] though its books were, of course, kept 
open, for purposes of liquidation, some indefinite time longer. 
Mr. Lowell refers to them for an entry of a sale of stocks by 
Mr. Boott, in October, 1827 ; [L. p. 71.] but this I have 
already mentioned as a probable misprint for October, 1824. 
[Ante, p. 399.] 

Mr. Boott, after the dissolution of that house, remained 
out of business, until he formed the connexion with Mr. Ly- 
man and Mr. Ralston in the Mill Dam Foundry, in 1826. 
[L. pp. 75, 76.] From that connexion, it has been seen, he 
withdrew by the settlement of September, or October, 1831, 
and the business of the foundry was then transferred to the 
corporation, formed by Mr. Lyman and the Messrs. Ralston. 
[Ante, Oh. 33.] 

Mr. J. Wright Boott was engaged in no business whatever, 
after his withdrawal from the Mill Dam Foundry. 

Let me now repeat, in this connexion, what the probate 
office shows : — 

Under date of Jan. 12, 1818, Mr. J. Wright Boott, as sole 
acting executor of his father's will, returned an inventory, 
consisting, entirely, of the real estate, and the household furni- 
ture, and other like chattels left to the widow, — nothing that 
the general heirs had an interest in, except the mansion- 
house, appraised at $24,000, and that subject to the life es- 
tate of Mrs. Boott. [B. App. p. 13.] 

The executor's first probate account, dated April 1, 1818, 
was passed May 11, 1818. [B. App. p. 14.] This, as be- 
fore shown, stated investments made, agreeably to the will, 
in U. S. stock, Suffolk Insurance stock, and Suffolk Bank 
stock, sufficient to cover the particular trusts for the widow 
and sisters of the testator, and nothing more. That is, the 
stocks named, amounted, at par, to ^111,111 11 ] and, al- 
though the premiums paid bring up the foot of the account 
to $116,783 95, these premiums appear to have been then 
treated as expense, in forming the funds. The account in- 
cluded $10,000 for instalments on the bank stock, not then 
payable, but soon afterwards paid ; and Mr. Lowell admits 



521 



that the trust funds were the only subject of this account. 
[L. p. 24.] 

Nothing more appears in the probate office till the account 
of 1844, which charges the executor with the amount of the 
inventory, the above mentioned foot of the former account, — 
entered as cash received, at or before that date, from the firm 
of Kirk Boott & Sons, No. 1, — and the sum of $69,389 99, — 
entered as " cash received of Boott & Lowell, in liquidation of 
the outstanding property of Kirk Boott & Sons," at some 
date not specified. To this is added $133 61, for the balance 
of gains and losses by sales, at dates not given, of the stocks 
named in the account of 1818 as held in trust by the exec- 
utor. This, it will be remembered, is the whole debit side 
of the account of 1844, except for " income received on the 
trust fund for the widow, from March, 1818, to November, 
1844 ;" — and it will also be remembered, that there is no con- 
nexion, traceable by the account of 1844, between the sums 
thus debited, and the property said, at the foot of that ac- 
count, to be in the executor's hands at that date, subject 
to the cash balance of $25,000, alleged to be due to him. 

Let us now look at other business transactions of Mr. 
Boott, Avhich, though not known to me at the time of my 
former pamphlet, are now proved by unquestionable evidence. 

The trust fund, formed in 1818, appears to have been first 
broken in upon by sales, in July and August, 1819, of 
$21,000 of the U. S. six per cent, stock of the loan of 1813, 
standing in Mr. Boott's name as executor, to divers parties, 
having no connexion with this case. [Ante, p. 269.] The 
sale of the residue of the six per cent, stocks, as before stat- 
ed, I have been unable to find ; but, according to the ac- 
count of 1844, the sale of the whole of the six per cent, 
stock was at a loss, compared with its cost, of $679 37. 
[See accounts, L. p. 38, B. App p. 14.] 

In 1820, March 1, as appears by the records of the Boston 
Manufacturing Company, Mr. J. Wright Boott, the senior 
partner of the house of Kirk Boott & Sons, No. 2, subscribed 
for thirty shares of a new issue of stock in that company, 
the certificates of which were taken out in his own indi- 

66 



522 



vidual name. The subscription price to new associates was 
$1150 per share, as I formerly stated, [B. p. 118.] and so Mr. 
Lowell tacitly admits. The amount paid, of course, was 
$34,500. Of these thirty shares the '' Reply " informs us, 
[L. p. 69.] that twelve were intended to represent an invest- 
ment for Mrs. F. Boott and for her children ; and, in respect 
to the children, it, in fact, appears, by the probate accounts 
of Mr. J. Wright Boott as their guardian, that eight shares 
of that stock went into those accounts, two for each ward. 
The remaining eighteen shares were intended, we are told, 
to represent an investment for the accomit of Mrs. Boott's 
annuity fund ; or, at least, that the dividends upon them 
were treated as Mrs. Boott's in the books of Boott & Lowell, 
as appears by an entry, purporting to be extracted from 
those books, under date of April 1, 1822. [L. p. 69.] These 
shares are charged among the property on i\and, in the ac- 
count of 1844, at the subscription price, amounting to 
$20,700. [L. p. 38. B. App. p. 43.] Thi.- investment, if 
intended at the time as a specific investment for the annuity 
fund, would about take the place, in March, 1820, of the 
$21,000 of U. S. six per cent, loan of 1813, sold about 
eight months before, with this difference or.ly, besides loss 
of interest, namely, that the U. S. stock stood in Mr. Boott's 
name as executor ; whereas the Boston stock stood in his 
private name^ with nothing to mark it as trust property. 
If the residue of the six per cent, stock was sold at or near 
the same time, there remained about $22,000 still in hand, 
for which no distinct investment appears, either as execu- 
tor, or in Mr. Boott's private name. These transactions oc- 
curred during the existence of Kirk Boott &> Sons, No. 2. 

In the fall of 1821, Mr. J. Wright Boott, in connexion 
with Mr. Kirk Boott, joined Mr. Nathan Appleton, and the 
late Mr. P. T. Jackson, in a speculation, which resulted in the 
purchase of all the shares in the Patucket Canal, and a 
large quantity of lands at Chelmsford, whereby the control of 
the water-power of the Merrimack river was obtained, for 
the purpose of manufacturing and printing cotton cloth, at the 
place now called Lowell. For the history of that matter, 



523 



I may refer to a recent published correspondence between 
Mr. Nathan Arpleton and Mr. John A. Lowell. Accordmg to 
that correspondence, the agreement of the four associates was, 
to form a com] any for this purpose, the stock to be divided 
into six hundred shares of $1000 each. The two Messrs. 
Boott subscril ed for ninety shares each ; Messrs. Appleton 
and Jackson for one hundred and eighty each ; and Mr. Paul 
Moody was allowed to subscribe for the remaining sixty. 
Afterwards, new associates were admitted, who took shares, 
relinquished to them, proportionally, by the first subscribers. 
An exact proportion would have reduced Mr. J. Wright 
Boott's shares from ninety to fifty-eight. It would seem, 
however, that he relinquished two more than his exact pro- 
portion to somebody; since, upon the organization of the 
Merrimack Manufacturing Company, (which was the corpor- 
ate name taken soon after by this private association,) Mr. 
J. Wright Boott appears to have been an original subscriber 
for fifty-six shares only of the corporate stock. This transac- 
tion, however, runs into the year 1822, the first assessment 
on the corporate stock having been payable on the first of 
April of that year. The transaction of 1821, though a large 
enterprise, which has led, eventually, to the investment of 
millions of dollars at Lowell, does not appear to have taken, in 
the outset, a very great sum of money from the associates, to 
efiect the first purchases. The whole amount paid in by the 
associates, prior to their transfer to the corporation, appears, 
by the correspondence above referred to, to have been short 
of 1^68,000. Of this, the Messrs. Boott, if they contributed 
their full original proportion, would have paid, jointly, about 
$20,000. But this was, doubtless, reduced by the contribu- 
tions of the new associates, who were afterwards admitted ; 
and, upon forty of the shares, parted with by the Messrs. 
Boott, a profit seems to have been realized of $4000. The 
moderate sum, thus paid by the unincorporated associates, 
must have been, afterwards, allowed to them by the corpora- 
tion, towards their assessments on the corporate shares they 
took, or must have been repaid to them in some other form, 
upon the transfer of the property to the corporation. 



524 



This Chelmsford speculation occurred during the last year 
of the house of Kirk Boott 60 Sons, No. 2 ; but, as we see, 
did not call, at that time, for much money. 

In the same year, 1821, it appears from Mr. Boott's guard- 
ianship accounts, that he sold out all the United States 
stocks, which he held as an investment for his four wards, 
to the amount, in all, of about $47,000. [Ante, p. 237.] 
This reimbursed him for an advance of the preceding year, 
caused by the purchase of eight shares in the Boston Manu- 
facturing Company for their account, and left him, at the 
end of the year, with cash of theirs in hand, to the amount, 
without interest, of about $45,500. [Ante, p. 237.] This 
sum does not appear to have been re-invested, to any great 
extent, on those accounts, for many years ; and the debt was 
constantly incre*asing by interest upon it, as has been before 
shown, until the marriage of one of his wards in 1826, when 
there was a partial payment to that ward. Neither has any 
investment by Mr. Boott, as executor, or any purchase in his 
own name, in the year 1821, or the early part of 1822, come 
to light, which could have taken up any considerable part of 
the fund thus borrowed from the estate of his wards. If 
the sum borrowed did not go into his mercantile business, it 
stands wholly unaccounted for. 

At what precise period of the year 1821 this large sale of 
United States stocks was effected cannot be ascertained from 
the probate accounts ; but, with the year 1821, the house of 
Kirk Boott & Sons, No. 2, came to an end ; and, on the first 
of January, 1822, the house of Boott & Lowell began ,* and 
we learn from the '' Reply " that Mr. Boott furnished to 
that house a capital of $40,000. [L. p. 58.] 

In March, 1822, we learn, also, from the '' Reply," that 
Mr. Boott purchased, in his own name, six shares of the 
Boston Manufacturing Company, from Dr. Jackson, at $1500 
a share ; for whose account, if not his own, does not appear. 
He held them till October, 1824. [L. p. 70. B. App. p. 32.] 

The first assessment on the fifty-six shares of stock in the 
Merrimack Manufacturing Company became due in April, 
1822 ; [B. App. 30.] but the payment of that assessment is, 



525 



to some extent at least, perhaps fully, accounted for by what 
was due to the Messrs. Boott for the advances, above men- 
tioned, on account of the company before its incorporation, — 
going upon the presumption that they contributed their fair 
share to the unincorporated association. In the latter part 
of that year, (1822,) Mr. J. Wright Boott went abroad, taking 
his brother William to Europe. There, it seems from the 
'' Reply," he travelled about a year. [L. p. 61.] The '' Reply " 
further informs us, that, although, during his absence, "nearly 
every thing relating to the pecuniary concerns of the family 
devolved upon " Mr. Lowell, [L. p. 28.] yet, that Mr. Kirk 
Boott took care of the assessments falling due on the man- 
ufacturing stock at Lowell. [L. p. 88.] Out of what funds 
did Mr. Kirk Boott pay these assessments, both for himself 
and his brother ? Did they not come from Mr. J. Wright 
Boott? And, if so, were they not, all, in truth, funds of the 
estate ? At any rate, Mr. J. Wright Boott must, at some 
time, have repaid to Mr. Kirk Boott the assessments on his 
own shares ; and their full amount, when paid, must have 
taken up $56,000. 

Shortly before Mr. J. Wright Boott went abroad, we have 
seen that he transferred to Boott & Lowell the United States 
seven per cent, stocks, which he held, duly invested as 
executor, for the trust funds of his father's will, to the 
amount, at par, of $31,111 11 ; and also the Suffolk Bank 
shares, which appear, by the probate accounts of 1818 and 
1844, to have been held by him on the same trust account, to 
the amount, at par, of $20,000. [Ante, pp. 268, 271.] 

What did Boott &> Lowell with those stocks, during Mr. 
Boott's absence in Europe ? The transfer books of the Unit- 
ed States stocks, now deposited at the Merchants' Bank in 
Boston, furnish the following account of the seven per 
cents. : — 



526 



1822. 

Teb'y 22 

" 28 

March 9 

April 25 

Oct. 1 



1822 
July 15 
Nov. 2 

» 18 
" 20 
" 28 

Dec. 13 

" 13 

1823 

Jan. 6 
" 6 
" 11 
" 11 
" 18 
" 23 
" 29 

Feb. 3 
" 3 
» 7 
" 20 

Mar. 14 



"BOOTT & LOWELL OE BOSTON. 

Purchases. 
From T. Barteile, Guard'n, 

" Jno. Hooper, . . . 

" Sundry Accounts, - - - 

" Jonathan Porter, . - . 

" Jno, W. Boott, Executor, - 



Sales. 



To George Evelyn, 
" Bass & Heywood, 



Trustees of the Greene Foundation 

Stephen Williams 

H, Andrews & S. A. Eliot, Trustees, 

Edmund Baylies, 

Henry Andrews 

D. Messinger & J. Simonds 

Trustees of Greene Foundation, 

Thomas Lamb, 

Boston Female Asylum, 

Rebecca Peck, 

Ezek'l Kendall, Jr. 

Sundry Accounts, 

Eliot & Andrews, 

Thomas Minns, 

Susannah Conway, 

Mary Hall, 

Henry Andrews, 



$4,000 
4,000 
6,400 
4,000 



$14,400 
4,000 



517 
1,000 
7,000 
2,500 

944 

1,380 

615 

3,000 

1,000 

3,000 

700 

550 

4.000 

360 

5,000 

300 

95 



$18,400 00 
31,11111 

$49,51111 



18,400 00 



31,111 11 



$49,511 11 

I certify that the above is an accurate copy from the United States Loan Books, 
kept at the Merchants' Bank, Boston. 

HENRY F. FLAGG, Acc't." 



It will be understood, of course, that the first $18,400, in 
the foregoing account, has nothing to do with this case ; at 
least, I am not aware that it has. The ^31,111 11, which 
came from "J. W. Boott, executor," appear to have been 
transferred by Boott & Lowell, from time to time, in small 
parcels, to diiFerent parties, between November 18, 1822, and 
March 14, 1823. All I know, further, about this parcel of 
stocks, is, that the probate account of 1844, though it 
makes no mention of Boott & Lowell as in any way con- 
nected with the transaction, and omits to specify the date of 
the transaction, shows these stocks to have been sold for the 
estate, by entering, under the head of " Gain on sale of 



527 



stocks," a certain amount of gain on a sale of the shares in 
the SufFolk Insurance Company, and thence deducting losses 
on all the other stocks ; and among them is, " Less loss on 
sale of U. S. seven cent, stock, $1,687 08 ;" which loss is, 
thus indirectly, charged to the estate. [L. p. 38.] Wheth- 
er it was incurred upon a sale by the executor to Boott & 
Lowell, or upon sales made bij Boott & Lowell as agents for 
the executor, can not be determined on the face of the trans- 
fers, but may be important for the heirs to know, and quite 
important for Mr. Lowell to explain. 

As to the Suffolk Bank shares, the transfer books of that 
bank show, as I have ascertained by personal inspection, 
that those shares, also, passed into the hands of Boott & 
Lowell, October 2, 1822, and were transferred by Boott & 
Lowell to the Mercantile Marine Insurance Company, May 6, 
1823 ; and, by the probate account of 1844, it appears, that 
they were sold at a loss of glOO ; which loss is charged to 
the estate, in a form similar to that above given in the case 
of the U. S. seven per cents. [L. p. 38.] 

The proceeds of these sales of the seven per cents, and of 
the bank shares, thus appear to have passed into the hands 
of Boott & Lowell ; and, if we may judge by these records, 
they appear, by comparing the cost of the stocks, according 
to the probate account of 1818, and the losses upon the 
sales of the same stocks, according to the account of 1844, 
to have produced $52,853 43.* Whether the U. S. six per 
cents, not accounted for by those of the U. S. loan books, 
Avhich I have, as yet, been able to find,— amounting, at cost, 
according to the probate account of 1818, to about $22,690, — 
also passed into the hands of Boott & Lowell, Mr. Lowell 

* U. S. seven per cent, stock, $31,111 11 

Premiuin on do 3,029 40 

200 SufFolk Bank shares, 20,000 00 

Premium on do 500 00 



Cost, by the account of 1818, [B. App. p. 14,] $54,640 51 

Loss, on sale of U. S. seven per cent, stock, by the 

account of 1844, [L. p. 38. B. App. p. 43.] $1,687 08 

Do. on sale of Suffolk Bank shares, by same, 1 00 00 

$1,787 08 

$52,853 43 



528 



will be able to tell us. He will also be able to tell us, what 
Boott & Lowell did with the money proceeding from any 
of these stocks, the last of which appear to have passed out 
of their hands, in May, 1823. 

In January, 1824, it appears by the transfer books of the 
Merrimack Manufacturing Company, that Mr. Boott became 
a subscriber for forty shares of the new stock, then created by 
that company ; which, when paid for, must have taken up 
$40,000. [B. App. p. 30.] He was then the holder of 
$96,000 in this stock. 

In the course of that year, it appears, by the same transfer 
books, that he sold sixteen of his Merrimack shares, (leaving 
forty of the old stock, and forty of the new,) and in 1825, he 
transferred four to Mrs. Mary Lee. After this, there appear 
no transfers from him, (except as collateral security for loans, 
and a transfer of three shares to Mr. William Lyman, which 
were afterwards restored,) until the transfers made in 1831, 
on his guardianship accounts, and to me in trust, as before 
explained. [Ante, p. 293.] 

In the course of the same year, (1824,) he appears to 
have sold the six shares of Boston Manufacturing Company, 
bought from Dr. Jackson, at their cost, as Mr. Lowell states ; 
[L. p. 71.] and, also, six other shares of the same stock, as 
the transfer book of the company shows, [B. App. 32.] be- 
sides transferring two shares to Mrs. Mary Lee. No other 
transfers of this stock appear afterwards, (except as collateral 
security, and a transfer and retransfer to and from Mr. 
William Lyman,) until the transfers, in 1831, of four shares 
to his guardianship accounts, and of fourteen to me mider 
my trust agreement. 

In April, 1824, he also sold the shares of Suffolk Insm-ance 
Company, which he held as executor, according to Mr. Hay- 
ward's certificate, [Ante, p. 268.] and realized from them, as 
appears by their cost in the probate account of 1818, and the 
gain upon their sale entered in the probate account of 1844, 
120,357 50.* 

^ Cost, by tlie account of 1818, [B. App. p. 14.] $17,753 44 

Gain, by the account of 1844, [L. p. 38.J 2,604 06 

$20,357 50 



529 



In the same year, (1824,) he bought, from the late William 
Dehon, an estate in Balfinch Place, which he, immediately, 
re-sold, reserving the stable, at a cost upon the whole transac- 
tion, according to the account of 1844, of ^2500. [L. p. 39.] 

In July, of the same year, the house of Boott &> Lowell, 
we are told, was dissolved ; [L. p. 28.] and, — whether at the 
winding up of their affairs, or at what other time, we are 
not told, but, at some time, we are told, by the account of 
1844, — Boott & Lowell paid over to Mr. Boott, as executor, a 
sum of $69,389 99, " in liquidation of the outstanding prop- 
erty of Kirk Boott & Sons." [L. p. 38.] This is charged, 
in the account, as so much property of the estate additional 
to the $116,783 95, which, in 1818, had been ''invested in 
stocks to constitute the trust fund," [L. p. 38.] but of which 
a great part was, afterwards, transferred, as we have seen, to 
Boott &, Lowell ; [Ante, p. 271.] and the amount, so trans- 
ferred, is not specifically accounted for, in the probate ac- 
count of 1844, otherwise than by charging upon the estate, 
in the form above shown, the loss experienced in the sale of 
the stocks. [Ante, p. 527.] 

As holder of eighty shares of Merrimack stock, Mr. Boott 
became entitled to eighty shares of the Locks and Canals 
Corporation, when that company was formed out of the 
Merrimack Company, which, I think, happened in this same 
year, 1824. He subscribed for, and took, the whole eighty 
shares in his own name, and afterwards disposed of them, as 
appears by the following letter : — 

LETTER FROM Mk. J. T. MORSE. 

Boston, February 13, 1849. 

Dear Sir, 

I find by the leger of the Proprietors of 
Lockw=; and Canals, that Mr. J. W. Boott took, originally, eighty shares 
in the stock of that company, which he disposed of to different par- 
ties in the years 1825, 1826, and 1828 ; and that the late Mr. Kirk 
Boott took, originally, in the same company, ten shares, five of which 
were disposed of by himself, and five transferred by his executor to 
the trustees, after his death. 

The book, containing the recorded copies of the transfer deeds, is 

67 



530 



not in my keeping, and I cannot therefore give the particulars of each 
transfer. Respectfully yours, 

J. T. Morse. 
To Edward Brooks, Esq., | 
Court Street. j 

I find no other transactions in stocks till February, or 
March, 1826, when Mr. Boott brought his late partners to a 
settlement. By that settlement, he received, as before shown, 
[Ante, Ch. 51.] twenty-one shares of Boston Manufacturing 
Company, from Mr. Kirk Boott, at $1300 a share, which, 
amounting to $27,300, are charged to the estate at that 
price in the account of 1844. He received, also, from Mr. 
James Boott, about the same time, five shares of Merrimack 
stock, which Mr. Lowell admits to have been transferred in 
settlement of the partnership accounts. [L. p. 51.] He re- 
ceived, also, from the same gentleman, about the same time, 
ten shares in the Locks and Canals. This I was not aware 
of at the time of the writing of my former pamphlet ; and 
Mr. Lowell takes care, as the fact makes against him, not to 
notice my omission. This was, no doubt, a part of the 
same settlement. I find, also, a transfer from Mr. William 
Wells to Mr. J. Wright Boott, about the same time, of six 
shares in the Locks and Canals, which I take to have been 
the refunding of some advance made to him beyond his wife's 
share of the estate. The shares in the Locks and Canals, 
acquired in these settlements, together with the balance of 
Mr. Boott's own subscription, were all disposed of in 1828, as 
I find from the books of the company, with the exception of 
six, which he held till 1831, and then transferred to his 
guardianship accounts; and the eighty-five shares of Mer- 
rimack became reduced by transfers to Mrs. Lee, and to his 
guardianship accounts, and by a sale of two shares in 1837, 
to seventy-one shares, which appear in the account of 184.4. 
[B. App. pp. 30, 31.] 

In this same year, (1826,) he entered into the business of 
the foundry, upon which he had expended, before September, 
1830, as we see by his memorandum, $70,000. [Ante, p. 198.] 

This brings us up to the period, at which I took up my 



531 



narrative with the state of affairs then existing, as shown by 
that memorandum, and by Mr. Lowell's admissions of the 
truth of its contents. [Ante, Ch. 21.] And it will be noted, 
that the greatest number, and by far the most important, of 
Mr. Boott's stock transactions, occurred during the existence 
of the house of Boott & Lowell ; although nothing in the 
account of 1844, or in the explanations of the "Reply," 
would lead to that supposition. 



CHAPTER LII. 

THE ISSUES RESPECTING LOSSES OF PROPERTY, IN TRADE, AND 
OTHERWISE. A GREAT LOSS, TO SOMEBODY, SHOWN FROM THE 
REPLY. 

My next step will be, to show, from my former pamphlet, 
and from the " Reply," what Mr. Lowell was called upon to 
ans\ver res2:)ecting supposed losses of property, and how he 
ans\vers it. 

I stated that '■ the great question of the account is, wheth- 
er it truly represents the whole capital of the estate, and the 
amount which had been distributed, so as to make out the 
supposed indebtedness of the estate to Mr. Wright Boott." 
[B. p. 108.] I added my belief, '^ that much more than 
$90,000 was distributed, or at least permitted to go to the 
use of the heirs ; but not with any equality." [B. p. 109.] 
And to avoid, as I stated, invidious comments on supposed 
over-payments to others, I pointed to my own case, only, as 
one, in which the furnishing of Mi's. Brooks's house should 
have been charged, in addition to the $10,000 paid to me, 
unless that expenditure was supposed to be included in the 
$275,000 paid " to, or for account and by order of, the 
widow." [B. p. 109.] 



532 



If $90,000. paid to the heirs, might be assumed to be 
correct, as an average result, I inquired " whether it can be 
true, that Mr. Wright Boott was justly accountable, as execu- 
tor, for no more than $186,000 of moneyed capital?" One 
thing, I said, is certain : — 

" Either Mr. Wriglit Boott made a gross misrepresentation, with- 
out any conceivable motive, when he stated to me, in 1821, and to 
Mr. William Boott, in 1827 — 8, and 1 believe to other heirs at other 
times, that the shares, presently distributable, were S20,(J00 apiece, or 
else, the account, prepared by Mr. Lowell, does not truly exhibit the 
full amount of capital, for which the executor was chargeable. The 
!$20,()00 apiece would have amounted to Si 80,000, besides the 
$111,000 of trust funds for his mother and aunts; — in all, upwards 
of $290,000, instead of S186,000, which the account shows. What 
Mr. Boott, senior, really left, I do not pretend to know. Mr. Lowell, 
to some extent, may have better means of knowledge. The books of 
Boott & Lowell are, no doubt, in his possession ; and from them, I 
presume, he arrives at the precise sum of !I69,389 99, as cash receiv- 
ed by the executor from that firm, " in liquidation of the outstanding 
property of Kirk Boott & Sons." But we want to know, whether 
this is a mere computation of Mr. Lowell's, and if so, upon what data, 
or whether it is the balance of an account in the books of Boott & 
Lowell, as would seem most likely, and if so, what were the items, 
which had previously gone into tliat account, and through what pe- 
riod it extended, before we can determine whether it truly represents 
all the property of the estate, which came to Mr. Wright Boott, even 
after the business of liquidation had passed into the hands of Boott 
& Lowell. W'e want i'arther to know, when it was paid, in what 
sums, and how it was invested, to determine the extent of his just ac- 
countability, even for the items of that particular sum. We are still 
more in the dark as to what had come to his hands before the firm of 
Boott & Lowell began. Mr. Lowell, apparently, does not go back to 
the books of Kirk Boott & Sons, or, at least, does not rely upon them 
for information on that head. He refers only to the former probate 
account, settled in 1818, and takes its foot as the whole residue of 
property, (besides the items of the inventory,) received by Mr. Wright 
Boott, before the payment to him by Boott & Lowell. As evidence of 
receipt, to the extent supposed by the present account, this has been 
shown to be defective by the sum of $10,000. But was there, in truth, 
nothing, which came to tlie hands of Mr. Wright Boott, or for which 
he had become accountable to the estate, in the interval between the 
settling of his account. May 11, 1818, and the formation of the firm 
of Boott & Lowell, in 1822 ? Had nothing of his father's come to 
his hands hfore May 11, 1818, except cash^ as stated in that account, 
and the chattels described in the inventory ? 

"The books of Kirk Boott & Sons, I presume, would throw light 
on that question ; but, those I have never seen, and do not know in 
whose custody they are. They would seem to be, most properly 



533 



now, in the hands of Mr. John A. Lowell, as executor of Mr. Wright 
Boott. They ought, certainly, to have been in Mr. Wright Boutt's 
own possession at the time of the making of this account, and should 
have been open to the inspection of Mr. Lowell. But, since nothing 
appears to be drawn from them in the account stated, we may, per- 
haps, fairly infer, that they were not looked at for the purpose ; for 
it seems impossible, that literally nothing should have been collected 
on account of the old firm, from May II, 1818, when the probate ac- 
count was settled, to Jan. 1, 1822, when the firm of Boott & Lowell 
was begun, (an interval of nearly four years,) and yet that, ofter those 
four years had passed^ near $70,000 of the estate's money should 
have been collected by that firm, and paid over to the executor. 
Yet such is virtually the statement of the present account." [B. pp. 
109, 110.] 

On the notices of dissolution of old firms and formation 
of new ones, I remarked : — 

" Now, it may be material to note, that the estate had legally the in- 
terest of a partner in the jfirst concern, and 7iot in the second ; and that 
Mr. Wright Boott was the sole liquidator of the first concern, and 
Boott & Lowell were liquidators o/i/y of the second concern. It is diffi- 
cult to see, therefore, how Boott & Lowell should have had occasion to 
settle any account with Mr. Wright Boott as executor, or to pay him 
any moneys in that capacity. Their settlement must have been with 
Kirk Boott & Sons, the second concern, whose affairs they were ap- 
pointed to liquidate; and, consequently, it could not have involved 
moneys of the estate, except such as Mr. Wright Boott may have 
permitted, improperly, to be employed in the trade of Boott & Low- 
ell, or such balance of the estate's money as may have been passed 
to that concern by Kirk Boott & Sons, the second, if Mr. Wright 
Boott had improperly invested moneys of the estate in that. His 
plain duty, as executor and surviving partner, was to have wound up 
fully the business of the old concern, in which his father was a part- 
ner, as soon as the business would permit. The rights of all persons 
interested in it, through the estate of the deceased partner, became 
fixed, March 19, 1818. No new trade was to be carried on, after 
that date, on their account, nor at their risk, with one exception. 
The will, contemplating the probability of a new partnership by some 
of the testator's sons, authorized the executor to make, in that case, a 
specific loan, at interest, to such new house, of the shares of his then 
minor children, until they should come of age. That, upon the theo- 
ry of the present account, would have amounted to a loan of S3(),000, 
and no more. Nothing belonging to the estate, as an undivided prop- 
erty, could, rightfully, have been placed in the second concern ; its 
partners may have placed their own shares there, and doubtless did ; 
the ascertained shares of the minor children might, also, have been 
placed there by way of loan to them, though the present account 
neither states, nor suggests, any such specific investment ; but, what- 
ever collections the second firm may have made, on account of Mr. 



534 



"Wright Boott as liquidator of the first concern, these, I presume, 
must be considered as having come to his hands at once, in his ca- 
pacity of executor, the moment they were collected, he being himself 
one of the collecting agents. Such moneys should have been imme- 
diately distributed among the parties entitled, and not continued in 
trade, except so far as specific loans went, authorized by the will. 
But, I apprehend, it will be found, if the truth can ever be got at, 
that Mr. Wright Boott made no such distinctions, — but suflTered the 
capital and outstanding transactions of the first house, in which the 
estate was a partner, to be indiscriminately mingled with the funds 
and business of the second house, in which the estate could not right- 
fully be a partner, and, which, it appears by Mr. Kirk Boott's letter 
of February 8, 1826, [App. No. 7.] must have been a very disas- 
trous one ; since his own share of the loss in it, not only used up all 
his own present share of his father's estate, but brought him into a 
very heavy debt beyond that. Now it was only the diminished out- 
standings of this second ruinous concern, which could have been the 
subject of a settlement by Boott & Lowell, and of a payment by them 
to Mr. Wright Boott, at some time, of near $70,000, ' in liquidation 
of the outstanding property of Kirk Boott & Sons,' — -for that is the 
name of the second concern, as well as of the first. And the interest of 
the executor in such a payment, if it was made to him as executor, 
which is the fact asserted by the present account, is no evidence that 
the second concern had not received, used, and lost, a much larger 
portion of the original estate, before the firm of Boott & Lowell came 
into existence. Whatever they had so received Mr. Wright Boott 
was chargeable for as executor, and not for the mere leavings, which 
may have been collected by Boott & Lowell. 

" The only important items of debit in this account, namely, the 
amount of cash, which had been specifically invested before May 11, 
1818, and the amount of cash stated to have been paid over to the 
executor by Boott & Lowell at some time after January 1, 1822, 
coupled with the total omission of any intermediate receipt by the ex- 
ecutor, are facts, which I am unable to reconcile wdth other known facts 
upon any hypothesis, except that of great loss to the estate, unwar- 
rantably incurred by the executor, in this second concern, for which 
he well knew himself to be personally liable, and which he originally 
intended to make good, and probably would have made good if he 
had been successful in all his subsequent speculations. How else 
can we account for his representations at all times, when he made 
any, that each heir was entitled to a dividend of $20,000 from the es- 
tate ? How else, for his feeling tJte necessity of a release from the 
heirs in 1833, and particularly from some of them, to whom he had 
in fact, already paid S 10,000, or more, which, according to Mr. Low- 
ell's account, exceeded all he owed them ? How else, for the fact 
stated to me by the late Mr. Pratt, that Mr. Boott, senior, at the dis- 
solution of the firm of Boott & Pratt, was a richer man than himself, 
and was afterwards engaged in trade successfully ? And what an il- 
lustration have we of the difference between a well managed and an 
ill managed property, in comparing the results, at the present day, of 
the estates of those two gentlemen, both of which were, or should 



535 



have been, out of the hazards of trade at dates not far apart ! Be- 
sides which, direct proof appears of heavy loss, sustained by the house 
which the sons estabh'shed, in the letter of one of the partners (Mr. 
Kirk Boott,) above referred to. The extent of it we are left to gather 
from inference. [B. pp. Ill to 113.] 

I then stated the evidence, known to me at that time, re- 
specting the settlement between Mr. Kirk Boott and Mr. J. 
Wright Boott, in 1826, leading to the inquiry, how much of 
that large sum, apparently accounted for by Mr. Kirk Boott, 
was for his share of loss by the firm, and how much for over- 
drafts or advances made to him. I referred, also, to the con- 
temporaneous transfer of stock by Mr. James Boott, as evi- 
dence of some settlement made with him, but doubted wheth- 
er there had been a complete repayment of his share of the 
loss. I expressed the opinion that Mr. J. Wright Boott, him- 
self, instead of being worth some $50,000 or more, as he 
was commonly reputed when I first knew him, was really 
worth nothing, after the winding up of the affairs of Kirk 
Boott & Sons, No. 2 ; but, on the contrary, was indebted to 
his father's estate for moneys improperly used in that con- 
cern, or permitted to be drawn out of it; and that, although 
he intended, at the time of the letter of Mr. Kirk Boott of 
February, 1826, soon to settle the estate, and pay over the 
balances, he was, unfortunately, induced, about that time, to 
enter into the speculation of the iron foundry, which called 
for large sums of money, and turned out so disastrously as to 
defeat all his calculations. My conclusion was : — 

" Without pretending, therefore, to have any know^ledge on this 
subject, except of the facts, or rather of the evidence, above stated, I 
am obliged to infer from this evidence, until I see something to the 
contrary, that the collections made by Kirk Boott & Sons, second 
concern, during the four years of their existence, before the firm of 
Boott & Lowell began, on account of the business and outstanding 
property of Kirk Boott & Sons, first concern, nearly the whole of 
which belonged to the estate of Mr. Boott, senior, w-ere sufficient to 
cover the subsequent great losses which seem to be plainly indicat- 
ed ; and that the account exhibited by jMr. Lowell, looking at it as a 
statement of results purporting to run back to the time of the testa- 
tor's death, is essentially defective in the omission of these collec- 
tions, which, if inserted, would show, I imagine, a large balance 



536 



against Mr. Wright Boott, even after allowing him the whole benefit 
of the fictitious credit of near $275,000 for ''income paid to, or for 
account and by order of, the widow." [B. pp. 115, 116.] 

These views were, of course, to a great degree conjectural, 
and were put forth as such. On revising them, however, in 
connexion with Mr. Lowell's " Reply," and the additional 
facts, which I have since learned, I see nothing, very essential 
in this controversy, to alter. But, it may be proper for me to 
suggest, that my unwillingness to bring into this case the 
probable receipts of particular heirs, further than the case ab- 
solutely required, may have left my statement so incomplete 
as to have given an impression, upon the whole, that I sup- 
posed a much larger amount of 7tiere mercantile loss by Kirk 
Boott & Sons, No. 2, than is likely to have happened. Mr. 
Lowell, at any rate, chooses so to view my remarks ; and 
his answer makes it necessary for me, now, to correct 
the imrression, if I gave it, of any such enormous magnitude 
of loss, in regular trade, as he wishes his readers to believe 
that my theory requires. I have already alluded to this sub- 
ject, but, for the purpose of a correction, I ought, perhaps, to 
show, more particularly, how, and where, I supposs the 
money to have gone. 

My idea, stated more in detail than formerly, is, that 
the estate of Mr. Boott, senior, was, as Mr. J. Wright Boott 
represented it, large enough to give a dividend of $20,000, 
or thereabouts, besides reversionary interests in the trust 
funds and in the real estate, to each of the heirs; and that 
most of them actually got that amount of dividend, in some 
shape or other, and sooner or later ; — that Mr. J. Wright 
Boott over-advanced, beyond that, largely, in some quarters, — 
he certainly did to his brother Kirk, — and that he supplied, 
for many years, to the family generally, a larger expenditure 
than the estate, in its unsettled condition, strictly warranted ; — 
that he had very little property of his own, at the time of 
his father's death, except what came to him as an heir or 
devisee ; — that the losses of Kirk Boott & Sons, No. 2, and 
his over-advances to some of the heirs, took away, for the 
time, considerably more than all he was individually worth ,* — 



53T 



that the funds of the estate, and his guardianship fnnds, 
were employed, indiscriminately with his own, in conduct- 
ing the mercantile business, in which he was engaged ; — 
that funds, from both these sources, passed into the business, 
first of Kirk Boott & Sons, No. 2, and afterwards of Boott & 
Lowell ; — that further loss was encountered in the business 
of this last named house; — that these losses fell, in the first 
instance, on his various trust funds, — his own property being 
insufficient, as before suggested, to meet his own share, and 
cover the amount he had advanced for others, beyond their 
just dividends from the estate ;- — that these advances he after- 
wards got back, fully, from Mr. Kirk Boott, from Mr. James 
Boott probably not, perhaps not from others ; — that he made 
very little for himself, for reasons that will appear, out of his 
Chelmsford speculation, though his brother Kirk left a mod- 
erate property, resulting entirely from that speculation, not- 
withstanding his large previous losses and debts first to be 
paid out of it ; — that all, which Mr. J. Wright Boott got 
back from his advances for others beyond their just dividends, 
and a great deal more, which belonged to his father's estate, 
went into the business of the foundry and was mostly sunk 
there ; sunk, at least, as a present property, available for the 
payment of debts, and for the making good of trust funds ; — 
and that, finally, since his guardianship accounts were event- 
ually made good, the balance of all these losses, beyond the 
amount of his individual property, (losses arising not only 
from capital directly sunk, but from a terrible interest account, 
which was constantly eating him up,) fell, by necessity, upon 
his father's estate, and upon the income derived from its 
trust funds ; and that the amount of this loss incapacitated 
him from paying to any heir, after 1830, more than he had 
already paid, except to Lyman & Ralston, who were paid by 
a relinquishment to them of his interest in the foundry, so 
far as that was payment. So that, if the account were cor- 
rected according to my theory, and in accordance with the 
particular facts discovered since my former pamphlet, it 
would not only show a use of the funds in Mr. Boott's 
hands as executor, very different from any thing that now 



538 



appears in the account, but would also show the receipt of 
about $100,000 more of capital than he is charged with, and 
payment to some of the heirs of about f 70,000 more than 
he is credited with ; and a large balance finally resulting 
against him, instead of an apparent balance in his favour. 

This mismanagement, and its consequences, I attribute, 
mainly, as I formerly did, to principles of action, essentially 
mistaken for a person in Mr. Boott's position ; to principles 
of generosity, without justice ; to neglect of accounts, and 
singular disregard of the ordinary duties of a trustee ; and to 
a species of mental obliquity,- which ended in insanity, par- 
ticularly affecting, before that development, his notions of 
his rights over the family property. From these causes he 
early placed himself, as I conceive, in a false position, from 
which he was never able to recover ; and which entirely 
accounts, to my mind, for his unwillingness to disclose, at 
any time, more than he did disclose, concerning the family 
property, and for his tacit refusal, notwithstanding the urgency 
of his brother Kirk and of Mr. Jackson, to settle any accounts, 
until circumstances, at last, compelled his reluctant acquies- 
cence in the account prepared for him by Mr. Lowell ; and 
that account, I think, he would never have adopted but for 
the hallucinations, imder which he then laboured. 

Now let us see what Mr. Lowell has to say to this theory of 
mine, so far as it was formerly disclosed. 

He meets it by an opposite theory ; which is, that Mr. Boott, 
senior, probably left at his death only about $280,000, all 
told, which, after deducting the specific bequests and devises, 
would give to the heirs about $15,000 each, besides their re- 
versionary interests in the trust fands and the mansion-house ; 
[L. pp. 25, 26.] that Mr. J. Wright Boott was, at the same time, 
worth about ^'70,000, besides what his father left him; 
[L. p 26.] that heavy losses were sustained by the estate, from 
particular causes, which he mentions, in the winding up of 
the business of the first house, — in which the estate had the 
interest of a partner, — and that the present divisible property 
of the heirs was thereby reduced below $10,000 each ; [L. p. 
27.] that in the second house, formed by the sons, instead 



539 



of loss, there was actually a profit ; [L. p. 51.] that some 
considerable loss was sustained, afterwards, by Mr. J. Wright 
Boott, in the business of the foundry, but not more than 
his private property was abundantly sufficient to bear ; [L. 
p. 202.] that there was no loss, any where, of funds of the 
estate, except losses, without fault of the executor, in the , 
winding up of the partnership business : and that, by pay- 
ing $10,000 to each of the heirs, as the account claims, the 
executor, in fact, over-paid them by a few thousand dollars, 
and this over-payment he preferred not to ask to have re- 
turned, [L. pp. 27, 58.] though he owed a large sum to Mr. 
Lowell, to which it might have been very conveniently ap- 
plied ; that the debt to Mr. Lowell, at the time of the 
settlement of the account, was over-balanced by the cash 
balance, due from the estate to the executor, arising out of 
this over-payment to the heirs, added to more than $20,000 
of his private property, which had become mingled with that 
of the estate,* in consequence of my agreement with Mr. 
Lowell in May, 1831 ; [L. p. 41.] and that, after paying 
the debt to Mr. Lowell out of this balance, and providing, 
fully, for his mother's trust fund, [L. pp. 45, 109, 195.] Mr. 
Boott remained the owner of one third of the reversions of 
the trust fund and the mansion-house, which, when they fall 
in, will amount to $48,000. [L. p. 110.] 

The latter part of this theory, — concerning the debt to Mr. 
Lowell, and the supposed private property of Mr. Boott, that 
was intended to pay it, and the effect of Mr. Lowell's agree- 
ment with me, — has been already disposed of, upon a view, 
which admitted, for the sake of the argument, that Mr. Boott 
had nothing of original capital, belonging to the estate, to 
account for, beyond that, which he is charged wiih by the 
account of 1844. It remains only to see, as to the residue 
of our respective theories, which of them is found to agree 
best with known facts. 

* Mr. Lowell does not seem to have very clear ideas as to the amount of this 
private interest. When he is accounting for the use made by Mr. Boott of the in- 
come from the manufacturing stocks, he says it was .f 20,000 ; or one sixth of the 
alleged cost of the stocks. [L. p. 92.] When he is treating another point, he says it 
was at least $25,000. [L. pp. 41, 88.] 



540 



The first remark, that suggests itself, is, that a great loss, 
by some means, and of somebody's property, is plain on Mr. 
Lowell's own showing. He tells ns, that the estate, left by 
Mr. Boott, senior, was, at first, estimated at $280,000. [L. p. 
25.] The account of 1844 shows only $186,000, besides 
the specific items in the inventory, appraised at near $37,000. 
[L. pp. 38, 39.] The estate fell ofi", then, from the first esti- 
mate, according to the " Reply," by not far from $60,000 : 
of which Mr. Lowell, since he asserts the fact, as founded on 
his personal observation, is bound to give some reasonable 
explanation. 

We are next told, respecting Mr. J. Wright Boott, that, at 
his father's death, he was possessed of $70,000 of his own 
earning, [L. pp. 25, 26.] a store, devised to him by his father, 
which Mr. Lowell rates at $16,000, [L. p. 58.] and one ninth 
of the divisible property of the estate, rated, after all deduc- 
tions made, at about $10,000. That is, the " Reply" claims 
for him, early in life, a property, in present possession, of 
about $96,000 ; and, if my view of a share of the divisible 
estate shall be found correct, his present property, (taking the 
statements of the '■^ Reply " in other respects to be true,) would 
have been $106,000. All this was independent of his one 
ninth of the reversions of the mansion-house and of the par- 
ticular trust funds. 

So he began his career, according to Mr. Lowell ; but, 
according to Mr. Lowell, he ends it with nothing, except a 
reversionary interest in the mansion-house and in the partic- 
ular trust funds ; namely, his own one ninth, and two ninths 
acquired from his sisters, worth, at the time he acquired them, 
only about $7500 each, as we have seen. [Ante, p. 254.] 
That is, about $15,000 of nominal property, in addition to 
his own reversionary ninth, takes the place of the $96,000, 
or $106,000; (according as we reckon a distributive share,) 
which is said to have been his at his father's death, independ- 
ently of reversions. If this be so, a loss of property, said 
to have been Mr. J. Wright Boott's, to the amount of $80,000, 
or $90,000, is to be added to the $60,000, which is said to 
have been lost by the estate. In all, a loss of from $140,000 



541 



to $150,000 is to be rationally accounted for by Mr. Low- 
ell, and accounted for consistently with the hypothesis that 
Mr. Boott distributed only $80,000, among the eight other 
heirs of his father's estate. 

We shall presently see how far the statements of the " Re- 
ply^" concerning the supposed loss of $60,000 by the estate, 
without fault of the executor, bear sifting. But how could Mr. 
J. Wright Boott, upon Mr. Lowell's theory, have lost $80,000, 
or $90,000, of property not the estate's ? If it was lost in 
the winding up of the business of the first house, the 
estate having an interest of tViree fourths in the partnership, 
must have lost thrice that sum ; that is, from $240,000 to 
$270,000, instead of $60,000, as the " Reply" claims. There 
was no loss, bat a small gain, according to the " Reply," in 
the mercantile business, in which Mr. J. Wright Boott was 
engaged with his brothers, after his father's death. [L. p. 51.] 
No loss is hinted at in the subsequent business of Boott & 
Lowell. Some loss in the business of the foundry, is admit- 
ted, it is true; and in one place, we are told, it was "a 
large part of his private fortune ;" [L. p. 202.] but, that it 
amounted to any thing approaching $100,000, as I ventured 
to suggest, or even $70,000, is treated by Mr. Lowell as quite 
preposterous. [L. pp. 89, 108-9.] Mr. Boott lived, besides, 
at very little personal expense ; for the cost of the establish- 
ment at Bowdoin square, even after his mother had left it, 
we are assured was not his, but was properly paid out of his 
mother's income. [L. p. 93.] Where, and how, did this large 
fortune of his, then, go ? 

That inquiry naturally leads to another, namely, whether he 
ever had it. That much more than §100,000 of property was 
sunk, under Mr. J. Wright Boott's administration, I deem to be 
unquestionable. We see that the " Reply," also, admits it. 
The only material questions, then, are, whose property it was, 
and whether it was lost by mismanagement as executor, or 
not. To these I shall next proceed. 



542 



CHAPTER LIII 



FORTUNE. 

On what is the pretence founded, that Mr. J. Wright Boott 
was worth, in 1817, $70,000, acquired in his father's life time, 
while his father died worth, at most, only $280,000 ? — for 
such are the extravagant assertions of the " Reply." [L. pp. 
25, 26.] 

My former remark, concerning Mr. J. Wright Boott's prop- 
erty, was : — 

" So far as I am informed, he had no opportunity of making any thing 
considerable before he went into partnership with his father. That 
partnership had existed only two or three years, at the time of his fa- 
ther's death, and by its terms five percent, was to be paid upon the cap- 
ital employed, which must have been furnished by his fatlier, before 
any division of profits, of which his share was to be one fourth. Al- 
though he was commonly supposed, therefore, to be worth some 
$50,000, or more, when I first knew him, I am inclined to believe, 
that he was really worth nothing, after the winding up of the affairs 
of Kirk Boott & Sons, second concern." [B. p. 114.] 

Ftuther information, now, confirms me in that belief. I 
would state it, however, with this qualification ; that, if, 
upon a settlement, at that date, of all his affairs, there might 
have been found any small residue of nominal property, it 
would have been found to lie, entirely, in claims upon oth- 
ers, then quite uncoUectable, for unauthorised advances to 
them oat of the funds of his father's estate, beyond their just 
share in it. These he would have been bound, on a set- 
tlement, to treat as his own private advances. He could 
not, for his own relief, have charged them, as executor, to 
the account of the estate. 

Mr. Lowell's comment on the passage, above extracted 
from my pamphlet, is : — 

"If Mr. Brooks had stated nothing, except so far as he was really 
informed, he would have omitted a large portion of his book. Mr. 



543 



Wright Boott came of age in May, 1809, and was probably admitted 
as a partner in the house on the 1st of February following. At all 
events, I find in the New England Palladium of September 11, 1810, 
an advertisement of a large stock of goods recently imported by Kirk 
Boott & Son. The father died in January, 1817 ; so that, instead of 
two or three years, as Mr. Bi'ooks, without qualification, asserts, he 
had then been a partner of the house about seven years, — in fact dur- 
ing nearly the whole of that pei'iod when, according to Mr. Pratt, (p. 
1 13,) Mr. Boott, senior, had been engaged in trade successfully." 
[L. p. 107.] 

Now Mr. Lowell must be too well informed in the commer- 
cial history of his own country at that period, not to know, 
what no reader, who is old enough, can fail to remember ; 
namely, that it runs into the midst of that disastrous series of 
public measures, concerning non-importation, non-intercourse, 
embargo, and war, which began in 1806, and did not terminate 
till the peace of 1815. These measures totally destroyed, for 
the time being, the only branch of business, in which the old 
firm of "Boott & Pratt," and, afterwards, the more modern 
firms of " Kirk Boott & Son," and " Kirk Boott & Sons," 
were ever engaged. 

Messrs. Boott & Pratt began this business about 1783. 
During more than twenty years of uninterrupted commer- 
cial prosperity, they had amassed, each, a large fortune for 
that day, — Mr. Boott being, as Mr. Pratt informed me, much 
the richer of the two. When times of trouble succeeded, 
they took an early opportunity to wind up, and retire upon 
their earnings. Mr. J. Wright Boott arrived at manhood, 
it seems, during this period of commercial stagnation. The 
measures of our government, for years after, continued to 
cut otf all honest merchants, engaged in British trade, from 
their employment, and left the door of enterprise open, in 
that branch of business, to none but irregular traders. 

The Messrs. Boott were, neither of them, men, who could 
be tempted to avail themselves of illicit traffic ; nor was 
it the habit of either of them, in the father's life time, ever to 
take extraordinary risks, or to depart from their regular line 
of business. And it appears from the public acts, to which 



544 



I refer,* that, from the time when Mr. J. Wright Boott came 
of age, according to the " Reply," [L. p. 107.] and, indeed, 
from a much earlier date, down to the close of the war of 
1812, the trade with Great-Britain, was never opened, except 
for about sixty days in the summer of 1809, under an author- 
ity conferred on the President by Congress, and again for a 
few months after May 1, 1810, when Congress adjourned, 
leaving intercourse open with both France and England, but 
subject to be closed against either power, by proclamation, in 
certain events. 

The revocation of the famous Berlin and Milan decrees, 
without a corresponding revocation of the British orders in 
council, caused the President to issue a proclamation, No- 
vember 2, 1810, which had the effect of stopping, once 
more, all commercial intercourse with Great-Britain on the 
second of February following ; and so it remained, stopped, 
until the peace of 1815. Yet the whole of these six or 
seven years, from 1809 to 1815, Mr. Lowell desires the reader 
to reckon among the years, "when, according to Mr. Pratt, 
Mr. Boott, senior, had been in trade successfully !" [L. p. 
107.] 

In respect to the advertisement of September, 1810, found 
by Mr. Lowell, it indicates, only, that Mr. Boott, senior, was 
disposed to avail himself of the opening of British trade, in 
the summer of that year, under circumstances, which seemed 
to offer a fair promise of its continuance, by entering again 
into business, for the purpose, probably, of bringing forward 
his eldest son, whom he then took into partnership. Yery 

* Non-Importation Act, April 18, 1806. 

Embargo, September 22, 1807. 

Additional Acts, Feb. 27, March 12, April 22, April 25, 1808, January 9, 1809. 

Non-Intercourse Act, with authority to the President to revoke or modify, 

March 1, 1809. 
President's Proclamation, April 19, 1809, to take effect June 10. 

" " August 9, 1809. 

Additions to the Non-Intercourse Act, June 28, 1809, May 1, 1810. 
Presideni's Proclamation, Nov. 2, 1810, to take effect Feb. 2, 1811. 
Additional Acts, March 2, 1811, April 4, April 14, 1812. 
Declaration of War, June 18, 1812. 
Repealing Acts, Pebruary 27, and March 3, 181. 5. 



545 



little could have been done, however, in the way of importa- 
tion and sale, before the trade was, once more, unexpectedly, 
brought to an end by the President's proclamation. 

In this connexion it may be noted, that the will of Mr. 
Boott, senior, executed November 20, 1813, has no allusion 
to any mercantile business, as then outstanding or anticipated. 
On the contrary, it indicates that his property had been 
withdrawn from trade, and was, mainly, invested in '' mortga- 
ges, bonds, notes," " shares in incorporated companies," and 
" stock in public funds ;" all of which, as well as real estate, 
are particularly mentioned. ''Accounts, merchandise, and 
cash," it is true, are included in the general enumeration ; but 
this is no more than might well be expected, in a description 
intended to cover all remnants of former business, whatever 
they might be. On the other hand, when we come to the 
codicil, made December 15, 1815, we find it begins as fol- 
lows : — 

" I, Kirk Boott, taking into consideration that, since the date of my 
will, bearing date November the twentieth, one thousand eight hun- 
dred and thirteen, the trade, in which I am engaged in partnership 
with my son, John Wright Boott, has been considerably entered into, 
and cannot be closed in a short time without great sacrifices being 
made, it is my will that in the event of my decease, that my said son, 
John \Y. Boott, shall carry it on in the name of the firm, and for and 
on account of myself and him, in the same proportion of profit or loss, 
as it may be, as it has heretofore been done, until the nineteenth day 
of March, one thousand eight hundred and eighteen ; that he shall im- 
port goods, make sales, receive debts, and make remittances, and do 
every thing as he shall think conducive to the interest of the ti-ade, in 
the same manner and form as during my life time ; that no division 
of the property, as devised by my said will of November twentieth, 
1813, shall take place until the nineteenth day of March, 1818, above 
mentioned ; that in the interim, between my decease and the said 
nineteenth of March, the Executors to my will of November 20th, 
may be investing the money, which I have bequeathed in trust for the 
support of my wife, Mary Boott, and for my sisters, Elizabeth and 
Ann Boott." [B. App. pp. 7, 8.] 

The same instrument, afterwards, states the terms of the 
partnership, and speaks of ''the concerns of the trade " as hav- 
ing been "settled on the first day of February of each year, 
since we have been connected together." 



546 



The fair inference, perhaps, is, that a partnership was con- 
sidered to have been nominally subsisting since 1810 ; and 
some unsettled accounts, or even unsold merchandise, may, 
possibly, have remained in 1813; but, it is very certain, that 
no considerable business was, or could have been, done, after 
1810, except to dispose of the importations of that brief pe- 
riod of trade, until the peace of February, 1815, when im- 
portation seems to have been vigorously recommenced by 
Kirk Boott &> Sons. Therefore it is that the testator speaks, 
above, of a trade, which, since the date of his will, (Nov. 20, 
1813,) ^^ \i^s heen considerably entered into, and cannot be 
closed in a short time, without great sacrifices." 

Although I may not have been literally correct, therefore 
in saying that the partnership had, at the time of the death 
of Mr. Boott, senior, in January, 1817, " existed only two or 
three years," and Mr. Lowell maybe, literally, correct, when 
he says it had existed " about seven years," the substan- 
tial/act is just as I stated it, and exactly the reverse of that, 
which Mr. Lowell states. From February, 1810, to Feb- 
ruary, 1817, there were not three years, in the whole, for 
British importers to operate in ; that is, not three years, in 
the whole, within which any new importations of British 
goods could have been made. During the whole residue of 
the period, the partnership may have existed ; the business 
did not. 

And, now, let us look at the manifest absurdity of Mr. 
Lowell's hypothesis. Mr. Boott, senior, began that partner- 
ship a richer man than Mr. Pratt. So Mr. Pratt said ; and 
nobody, not even Mr. Lowell, questions it. Mr. J. Wright 
Boott, a youth in his father's counting room, then just of age, 
began it without a farthing. Mr. Boott, senior, was to re- 
ceive five per cent, upon his capital, before there were any 
profits to divide ; and of all the profits, beyond the five per 
cent, interest, three fourths were his, and one fourth only 
his son's. This appears by the codicil. [B. App. p. 8.] 
Consequently, if Mr. J. Wright Boott acquired $70,000, for 
his share of profits during the partnership, his father must, in 
the same time, have acquired $210,000, to add to the large 



547 



capital he began with, and to the interest upon it, which was 
rolling on whether other business was in progress or not, sub- 
ject only to the expenses of his family establishment, which, 
at that period, were by no means extravagant. He ought, at 
that rate, to have died worth more than half a million of dol- 
lars. We should thus have, upon Mr. Lowell's hypothesis, 
much more loss of property to account for, than any body 
has 3^et imagined. And, although the business was suc- 
cessfully prosecuted, according to Mr. Pratt, who will believe 
that, by the sales of less than three years of importation, the 
firm of Kirk Boott & Sons, employing no very vast capital, 
earned a net profit, beyond interest, of $280,000 ? Or, if 
they did, who can believe that Mr. Boott, senior, who had 
previously been, during more than twenty years of unusual 
mercantile gains, in successful business with Mr. Pratt, and 
who, in 18 13, owned, as a separate property, all those bonds, 
notes, mortgages and stocks, which are spoken of in his will, 
should have left, all together, only $280,000 of property? 

If, during the interrupted term of their brief copartnership, 
Mr. J. Wright Boott may be supposed to have accumulated 
some fifteen or twenty thousand dollars, and his father to 
have added thrice that sum, besides some accumulation of 
interest, to the handsome fortune he had acquired in connex- 
ion with Mr. Pratt, this seems to me quite as much as any 
reasonable man will think probable, without some better evi- 
dence than Mr. Lowell has to offer. For what is his evi- 
dence ? The reader may be slow to believe it, but the only 
evidence in the world, referred to in the '' Reply," for so ma- 
terial a fact, is Mr. Lowell's own alleged "reminiscences" 
of what the apprentices and clerks in the counting-room are 
supposed to have guessed, about the comparative wealth of 
their respective masters. And where, by the way, are these 
clerks and apprentices ? Why have we no statement from 
any one of them, except Mr. Lowell ? How happens it, that 
nobody is even referred to, for confirmation of his statement 
on such a point ? And, supposing Mr. Lowell and the other 



548 



apprentices to have entertained such opinions at the time, 
what were their means of knowledge ? 

Mr. Lowell himself, we are told, entered the counting- 
room in September, 1815, " when under seventeen years of 
age." [L, p. 23.] He was a boy of about eighteen, then, 
in January, 1817, when the senior partner died. At that ear- 
ly period of life, he says, — " My position enabled me to see 
and knoiu a great deal about the course of the business of 
the first firm of Kirk Boott & Sons, of which the father was 
a copartner." But he is obliged to add, " The stock, or 
private partnership, leger was never exposed to the inspec- 
tion of the clerks. I consequently can not state, positively, 
the amount of capital in the firm, rior the proportions of it 
owned by the partners." [L. p. 25.] Again, he says, " The 
partnership accounts between the father and sons, and af- 
terwards between the brothers, / never saw ; nor do I know 
how they were kept^ [L. p. 31.] What, then, does he 
know about them ? Why, we are told : — 

" The generally received opinion^ among the clerics, ordinarily dis- 
posed to overrate rather than to undervalue in such cases, was that the 
property of Mr. Boott, at the time of his death, was about $280,000 ; 
and that of Mr. Wright Boott, who had been a partner of his father 
for about seven years, was estimated at about $70,000." [L. p. 25.] 

If such was " the generally received opinion among the 
clerks," it is pretty certain, from what we have just seen of Mr. 
J. Wright Boott's opportunities for acquiring a fortune, that 
they must have indulged their disposition of overrating, in 
his case, to a most unusual extent; and they seem to have 
thwarted their own natural inclinations, quite as remarkably, 
in the case of his father. 

Since this part of the case, then, rests entirely upon Mr. 
Lowell's "reminiscence," I think it will be fair for me to 
place in offset another of my reminiscences. While I was a 
very young man, and before I had become particularly ac- 
quainted with the family of Mrs. Boott, I happened, once, to 
have a conversation with the late Hon. John Lowell, the 
father of Mr. John A. Lowell, and to hear from him some 
highly interesting remarks. Circumstances have brought 



549 



them vividly to mind. He was speaking, with his usual ani- 
mation and impressiveness, respecting the constant dispersion 
of large fortunes in this country, and its political consequen- 
ces. In the course of his observations, he referred, for an 
illustration, to the estate of Mr. Boott, senior, who had then re- 
cently died, and spoke of it to the effect following : " There 
was my friend, Mr. Boott, for instance ; he was called a very 
wealthy man, and yet, you see, he dies, and there are his 
children left with only $20,000 apiece to live upon." How 
Mr. John Lowell got the idea, that the estate gave $20,000 
apiece to the children, is more than I know. If it should 
happen to have come from one of the clerks in the count- 
ing-room, it would seem rather inconsistent with the present 
recollections of Mr. John A. Lowell. Perhaps he will ac- 
count for it, however, by supposing that Mr. Lowell, senior, 
'meant to speak of the children's " ultimate expectations,^^ at 
the decease of Mrs. Boott ! If so, all I can say to that is, that 
he did not say so, and I did not so understand him. Mr. 
Lowell, senior, had been on a footing of some intimacy with 
Mr. Boott, senior, as I always understood ; and placed his 
son, it seems, in that counting-room. We are told, too, in 
the " Reply," that Mr. J. Wright Boott acted under his ad~ 
vice, in returning "an inventory of the real estate, and of 
the property specifically devised." [L. p. 24.] If so, he 
had an excellent adviser, and most unexceptionable advice. 
The advice may have extended, also, to the formation of 
the trust fund, and to the early settlement of an executor's 
account to cover it. The proceedings in the settlement of 
the estate were, so far, perfectly regular. But I do not un- 
derstand the " Reply " to intimate that Mr. Boott was advis- 
ed, by any body, not to settle, within a reasonable time, an 
account of the residue of the estate, and never to file in 
the probate office the slightest evidence of the property, to 
which gtneral heirs were entitled, independently of the trust 
funds. Such advice, certainly, could not have come from 
the late Mr. Lowell. 

But one thing the present Mr. Lowell thinks he can afford 
to state positively, notwithstanding his avowed ignorance of 



550 



the partnership accounts, and of the relative capital of the 
father and son, at the time of the father's death. He says : — 
" Mr. Wright Boott was a man of fortune, certainly worth, 
when I was his partner, at least $70,000." [L. p. 58.] 
Now, if Mr. J. Wright Boott was really worth $70,000, at 
the time of his father's death, in 1817, besides what his father 
left him, (which was the former statement, according to 
the '' generally received opinion among the clerks,") he ought 
to have been " certainly worth," upon the premises of the 
" Reply," a great deal more than $70,000, when he was a 
partner with Mr. Lowell. For, his father left him a store, 
worth, as Mr. Lowell says, $16,000, [L. p. 58.] and a present 
share of his estate, then estimated, according to these same 
clerks, at $15,000, or according to their highest estimates, 
at $16,000 or $17,000, [L. p. 52.] besides the reversions ; 
and although Mr. Lowell thinks there must have been a 
tremendous loss in the winding up of the affairs of the old 
firm, and that it was sufficient, in his judgement, to bring 
down, to less than $10,000 a share, an estate, which, by " the 
generally received opinion among the clerks," had been esti- 
mated at $15,000, $16,000, and even $17,000 a share, yet, 
it must not be forgotten, that Mr. J. Wright Boott's propor- 
tion of that loss, as a partner, ought to have been counter- 
acted in some degree by the profit, which, according to the 
" Reply, ^"^ was earned in the business of the second house ; 
to say nothing of several years' accumulation of interest on 
so large a sum as Mr. J. Wright Boott is thus assumed to 
have been worth at the outset. Yet, when he became a 
partner of Mr. Lowell, in 1822, that gentleman can not say 
that he was, then, " certainly worth " more than, ^^ at least, 
$70,000." But, to make assurance doubly sure, that he was 
"certainly worth " that sum "at least," the "Reply" un- 
dertakes to specify, in a note, the particulars, of which the 
$70,000 is supposed to have consisted ; viz : 

" He had in our business a capital of S40,000 

The store in State Street was worth 16,000 

He had advanced to Wells & Lilly, 14,000 

[L. p. 58.J »70,000" 



561 



Now, Mr. Lowell, I admit, ought to know, with certainty, 
what capital Mr. Boott put into the business of Boott & Low- 
ell. I say nothing of stocks, belonging to the trust fund, 
transferred to that house at a later date, since I understand 
Mr. Lowell to speak, here, of the capital put in at the form- 
ation of the house, January 1, 1822. But where did that 
capital come from ? Does Mr. Lowell know that ? Passing 
by all questions about moneys of the estate, or supposed 
josses of Kirk Boott & Sons, No. 2, here are Mr. J. Wright 
Boott's guardianship accounts, which show us, plainly, 
$45,500, borrowed from the estate of his wards in 1821, and 
not invested in any thing, known or conjectured, unless in 
his mercantile business. [Ante, p. 237.] Can Mr. Lowell ex- 
plain that ? If not, the $40,000 of capital, put into the house 
of Boott & Lowell, has no tendency to prove that Mr. Boott 
was, in truth, worth any thing. Let us look, then, at the 
other items. 

As to the store, which came from his father : Mr. Lowell 
says it was, at that time, "worth $16,000." Was it so? 
It had been appraised in January, 1818, at only $9600. 
[B. App. p. 13.] It was burnt down in April 1825, [L. p. 59.] 
and, after rebuilding, was sold, it is true, for $16,000, in 
1831. This valuation of the new store, in 1831, Mr. Lowell 
takes for the value of the old store in January, 1822, though 
it had been appraised, only four years before, at no more 
than $9600. 

The advances to Wells & Lilly, which are set down, here, 
as part of Mr. Boott's private fortune, (being the same for 
which Lilly's note of ^14,000 was given,) we are elsewhere 
told, was a debt " Avhich had grown out of advances made 
by Mr. Boott, senior, to his son-in-law, Mr. Wells, and sub- 
sequent advances by Mr. Wright Boott himself." [L. p. 87.] 
Now, if Mr. Lowell wishes us to take this item, or any part 
of it, as evidence of Mr. J. Wright Boott's private fortune, it 
seems to me he ought to tell us how much of these advances 
had been made by Mr. Boott, senior, and how much by the 
son ; and he ought also, to tell us when, and out of lohat 
funds, the advances were made by the son ; for Mr. Robert 



552 



Lilly's note to Mr. J. Wright Boott happens to have been 
dated December 31, 1828 ; so that I am quite unable to see 
how Mr. Lowell should have estimated that as part of Mr. 
Boott's private property during the existence of the firm of 
Boott & Lowell, which came to an end in 1824. He must, 
at least, go back of that note, and show whether any thing 
had been lent, by Mr. J. Wright Boott, out of funds belong- 
ing to himself, either to Mr. Lilly, or to Wells & Lilly, before 
1822, if he means to satisfy us that Mr. J. Wright Boott had, 
personally, something to lend. 

And this is all the evidence, Mr. Lowell can give us, of 
the reasonableness of the '' generally received opinion among 
the clerks" in 1817, according to his present recollections 
of it, or of the grounds of his own certain knowledge, in 
1822, that Mr. J. Wright Boott, was, then, worth "at least 
$70,000." All we can see to be his own is the store ; and, 
how much he owed at the same time to his father's estate, 
we can not see from any statement of the " Reply." We 
shall find, however, from other evidence, that it must have 
been a considerable sum. 



CHAPTER LIV. 

LOSSES OF THE FIRST HOUSE OF KIRK BOOTT & SONS. BASIS, 
ON WHICH THE SECOND HOUSE, PROBABLY, BEGAN BUSINESS. 

Mr. Lowell's aim being to build up as much property as 
any body would be likely to credit for Mr. J. Wright Boott, 
and to bring down a distributive share of the father's estate 
as low as any body would be likely to credit, his next step 
is, to account for the reduction of the latter, from the first 
received opinion of the clerks, by at least one third. 



653 
This is done as follows : — 

" The copartnership, however, met with very heavy losses after the 
death of Mr. Boott. 

These were owing in part to the political circumstances of the 
times. The double duties which had been levied during the war were 
repealed in 1816, and there was in consequence a great fall in the value 
of merchandise. Kirk Boott & Sons had a very heavy stock of goods, 
which were sold at a great sacrifice. Their country customers, who 
had bought very largely at the high prices, under the excitement of 
the return of peace, suffered in the same way, and began to fail on 
every side. To crown this series of misfortunes, Mr. Kirk Boott, of 
London, a relative of Mr. Boott, senior, who had formerly been a 
partner of the house of Boott & Pratt, and who was the agent in Eng- 
land of Kirk Boott & Sons, became bankrupt in June, 1817, owing 
them a very large sum of money, I think about £10,000 sterling. Of 
this, very little was ever recovered. 

From what I saw and knew of these losses, I came to the conclu- 
sion, that, if the sum coming to the heirs as residuary legatees had 
not, before they occurred, much exceeded the received opinion, these 
events would reduce it below the sum of $10,000 for each, which the 
will permitted the executors to advance to some of them. When it 
came to my knowledge, some years afterwards, that Mr. Wright Boott 
had paid them all $10,000, and upwards, I felt assured that he had 
overpaid them ; and this opinion I have expressed to nearly every one 
of them during the last twenty years." [L. pp. 26, 27.] 

We have, now, not even a reference to the '^ received 
opinion " of others. It is all Mr. Lowell's own opinion ; 
which, he says, he has expressed to nearly every one of the 
heirs during the last twenty years. That period, reckoning 
from the date of his publication, would carry us back as 
far as 1828. What could have induced him to express such 
opinions then ? How did he learn, at that early day, that 
Mr. Boott had paid only $10,000, (or "$10,000 and up- 
wards j''^ as Mr. Lowell, admits, notwithstanding the* account 
claims to have paid $10,000 only,) to each of the heirs ? 
When I conversed with him in May, 1831, he says, he knew 
nothing about Mr. J. Wright Boott's affairs, except what I 
told him. [L. p. 30.] He certainly never learned the fact, 
now stated, from me ; for 1 believed that $20,000 was the 
sum paid, or allowed, to several of the heirs, and believe so 
still ; nor did 1 ever hear the matter discussed or alluded 
to by any body before the summer of 1830, nor by most 



554 



of the family, until after the fact of a great loss in the busi- 
ness of the foundry had become notorious among them ; 
and that knowledge was followed, at no great distance, by 
the release of 1833. When, and how, I repeat, then, did 
Mr. Lowell find occasion to express these opinions to the 
family^ prior to the troubles about a settlement of accounts, 
in 1844? — unless he means (and that is not what he says,) 
that he expressed them to Messrs, Lyman and Ralston par- 
ticularly, when he was negotiating with them, in 1831. 

Mr. Lowell, however, grounds his declared opinion, now, 
upon what he saio and kneio of the losses of Kirk Boott & 
Sons, No. 1, specifying several causes of loss, and their effects, 
of which he makes himself a personal witness. I profess to 
know nothing, personally, about any of them, but claim the 
privilege of sifting Mr. Lowell's statements, 

1. Loss by a failure in England, in 1817, is mentioned, of 
startling magnitude. But its amount, which is the only im- 
portant point, Mr. Lowell does not undertake to speak of with 
his usual confidence. He says it was, '' I think, about 
£10,000 sterling;" and of this, he adds, ^^ very little was 
ever recovered." Now on this latter point, whatever the 
amount of the debt may have been, I think I can make Mr. 
J. Wright Boott himself a witness against Mr. Lowell ; for, 
according to his statement to me, in May, 1821, as contem- 
poraneously reported in my letter to my father, above ciled, 
when I had no conceivable motive to represent the case bet- 
ter than it was, it seems that there were " large debts due in 
England, which have been very doubtful, and are not yet, 
altogether, discharged." [Ante, p. 465.] The fair inference 
from this language is, that the greater part, instead of '' very 
little," had then been recovered. And Mr, Boott's representa- 
tions to me were, that, from the balance of debts in Eng- 
land, still outstanding, considerable collections might be 
confidently expected. 

2. As to the repeal of the double duties ; that measure 
took effect June 30, 1816, after several months notice.* It 

*See the Act of February 5, 1816, whereby the double duties, then about expir- 
ing, by their former limitation, were extended to June 30, 1816, when they expired* 



555 



may have caused some failures, after the testator's death, 
ill January, 1817, as well as before, for aught I know, among 
debtors to the house, for goods previously sold to them. 
But, in respect to the " very heavy stock of goods," which, 
according to the " Reply," remained unsold, at Mr. Boott's 
death, I am unable to perceive why the full effect of any 
fall in their value, occasioned by that reduction of duties six 
months previously, should not have been notorious at that 
time : and if so, whatever loss there may have been from 
that cause, and also whatever loss may have accrued from 
failures, which had already occurred, such considerations 
must have entered, one would think, into the '^ received opin- 
ion " of any tolerably intelligent set of clerks, in January, 

1817, concerning the value of the property then on hand. 

3. Mr. Lowell, however, after declaring, as above, the 
conclusion, to which he came from what he saw and knew 
of the losses, proceeds thus : — 

" As I left their employment in less than a year after the forma- 
tion of the second 'partnership of Kirk Boott & Sons, I cannot speak 
with so much co-ifidence of the result of the liquidation of the out- 
standing business of i\\fi Jirst firm. Since, however, that liquidation 
could not begin, by the terms of the will, until the 19th of March, 

1818, and the large stock of goods on hand sold veiy slowly, it re- 
mained subject to the appalling reduction of prices, which, as every im- 
porting merchant will well remember, was consequent upon the re- 
sumption of specie payments by the Bank of P^ngland in the latter 
part of this year or the beginning of the next They had not, like the 
new house, the opportunity of availing themselves of the low prices to 
replenish their stock." [L. p. 27.] 

Mr. Lowell, then, by this paragraph, professes to know 
nothing, after all, about the result of the liquidation. But, 
fearing the inadequacy of all the causes, he had assigned, to 
account for so large a loss as his case requires, another is now 
surmised, viz., the resumption of specie paynients by the 
Bank of England, m the latter part of 1818, or early in 1819, 
as is said ; and appeal is made to the memory of all importers 
for ^' the appalling reduction of prices," caused by that event. 
Mr. Lowell may be right in this ; — he certainly ought to be 
better informed than I, on such a point ; but, if so respecta jle 



556 

a writer as Mr. McCulloch may be presumed to be of equal 
authority with Mr. Lowell, on the history of the Bank of 
England, I may be allowed to suggest, that, according to that 
writer, Mr. Peel's Act, as it was commonly called, though 
passed in 1819, fixed the period for resumption in 1823 ; 
and though the Bank did, in fact, resume its specie payments 
in anticipation of the time fixed by law, it did not begin to 
do so till May 1, 1821.*- The errors of the "Reply" seem 
to be as remarkable in matters of public history, as they 
were lately shown to be in simple arithmetic. One is almost 
tempted to say, "It really seems as if Mr." Lowell "never 
could be right even by accident." [L. p. 71.] I will con- 
tent myself, however, with saying, that, since the resump- 
tion, did not begin till May, 1821, a winding up and realiza- 
tion of the affairs and effects of the old firm, if begun, 
as the will required, March 19, 1818, ought to have been 
pretty substantially accomplished within the three years, from 
1818 to 1821, and before the unfavourable action of a new 
currency in England could have been felt. The memory of 
importing merchants, therefore, I imagine, will not greatly 
aid Mr. Lowell on this point ; although it may enable them 
to perceive, that the second house, which was formed by the 
sons in the spring of 1818, and began its liquidation in the 
latter part of 1821, would be likely to feel the full force of 
that measure, and of the preparations made for it. 

These are all the causes of loss to the first house, which 
Mr. Lowell is able to suggest ; and, in respect to all of them, 
the reader, I think, cannot fail to have noticed the singular 
departure from that positiveness and boldness of statement, 
(except as to a resumption by the Bank of England in " the 
latter part of this year, [1818,] or the beginning of the 
next"! — -there is not the least doubt of that,) which usually 
characterize Mr. Lowell's remarks. 

I may also point out the singularity of the circumstance, 
that he should not be able to speak with any confidence of 
" the result of the liquidation of .he outstanding business of 
thej^rs^ firm," [L. p. 27.] and should disclaim all personal 

* McCalloch's Dictionary of Commerce. Title, " Bank of England." 



557 



knowledge of '^ the profit and loss of either of the firms of 
Knk Boott & Sons," [L .p. 36.] when he is found to congrat- 
ulate himself, soon after, on the certainty of the following 
averments : — 

" Fortunately, these facts were certain : that nothing had been 
taken from the capital in trade, belonging to his father's estate, except 
the trust funds, during either of the partnerships of Kirk Boott & 
Sons ; and that the final liquidation of the whole business was detail- 
ed in the hooks of Boott ^ Lowell, which had been preserved^ [L. 
p. 59.] 

And yet it appears by the account of 1844, that, after 
the withdrawal of the capital of the trust funds, invested in 
1818, not a farthing was collected by the executor, on account 
of the estate, until $69,389 99 was '' received of Boott & 
Lowell in liquidatio?i of the outstanding property of Kirk 
Boott S^ Sons,''^ [L. p. 38.] — tneaning of course, Kirk Boott 
&< Sons, No. 1, since that was the only house, in whose 
liquidation the estate could have been, lawfully, concerned. 

In this connexion I would call the attention of the reader 
to the fact, that there is not, throughout Mr. Lowell's book, 
one word of explanation, nor the least notice taken, of the 
very extraordinary circumstance, pointed out above, namely, 
that the executor, should have been able to collect, from the 
testator's interest in the first firm, upwards of $100,000, with- 
in fifteen months from the testator's death, (as is proved by 
the account of 1818,) and should not have been able to col- 
lect one dollar more, on that account, for nearly four years 
next succeeding, (that is during the whole term of the part- 
nership formed by the sons,) and yet that, after the lapse of 
those four years, he should have been able to collect, during 
the term of the partnership of Boott & Lowell, near $70,000 
more ! 

Whence comes this gap of nearly four years, in the process 
of liquidation ? How happens it, that, from the day of the 
termination of the first house, when its liquidation should 
have begun, to the end of the duration of the second house, — 
within which time, the liquidation of the first ought to have 
been mainly completed, — not a dollar is realized ? Whence 



558 



comes it, that absolutely nothing should have been collected, 
in that period of nearly four years, although $70,000, nearly, 
were realized within the subsequent two and a half years of 
Boott & Lowell ? Is such a fact probable ? Is it, from the 
nature of the business to be wound up, I may say, possible ? 
Yet, such is the plain statement of the account of 1844, on 
Mr. Lowell's theory, that it is a complete and perfect account 
of the executorship! 

And here is another inquiry. How came Boott &- Lowell, 
who, we see by their own advertisement, were empowered 
to liquidate the concerns of the second house only, in which 
the estate had rightfully no interest, to collect and pay over, 
not to the late members of that house, but to the exeutor^ 
for his interest, as such, in the first house, this $70,000 ? 
For such is the statement of the account. Is there, can there 
be, any reasonable explanation, except that the second house 
took up the stock and business of the first house, just where 
they found it, and then, having carried on the business, partly 
with the old stock, and partly with new importations on their 
own account, four years longer, passed over for liquidation to 
Boott & Lowell all that remained in their hands at the expi- 
ration of that term, that remainder being property of the 
estate due from them to the executor ? These queries, and 
the inferences they lead to, are not new. I relied upon them 
formerly, as I have shown, [Ante, pp. 533, 534.] and they 
stand wholly unanswered by Mr. Lowell! 

Let us look, for one moment, at the probability of the 
arrangement, which I suppose to have been made. 

The testator had authorized the executor, it will be re- 
membered, to lend, to such a firm as the sons established, the 
shares in his estate of the minor children, then three in num- 
ber. The three sons, who were members of that firm, had a 
right, of course, to put into it their own shares. This, with 
the shares of the minors, made up two thirds of the estate. 
Dr. Boott's share, to the extent of $20,000, I always under- 
stood, had been paid to him, when he left this country. 
There remained only the shares of Mrs. Wells and Mrs. Ly- 
man ; and the former had already received a large part of her 



559 



share by advances made and charged to her by her father, as 
appears by an instrument, in the nature of a second codicil to 
his will, proved and filed in the probate office, but not hereto- 
fore printed. I noAV make from it this extract : — 

MEMORANDUM of MR. BOOTT, SENIOR. 

"Boston, November, 30, 1813. 

"The enclosed notes, viz: one, dated January 28. 1813, signed by 
William Wells, Jr., for four thousand dollars, and the other, dated 
January 30, 1813, signed by William Wells, Jr., for twelve thou- 
sand dollars, are my property. I have charged myself with them in 
my book of disbursements, this day. If I should die, without having 
made any arrangement with the said William Wells, Jr., respecting 
them, I hereby order the note, dated January 30, 1813, for twelve 
thousand dollars, and the interest due thereon, to be cancelled, and 
given to said Wells, wMthout making any charge of it. But, the other 
note, dated January 28. 1813, for four thousand dollars, and the inter- 
est due thereon, / order to be charged to my daugldcr Frances^ the 
said Wells's wife, for which she must account, witk the other sitms 
a/ready charged to her, out of the legacy, which 1 have bequeathed to 
the said Frances." 

Although, therefore, it was a great irregularity in the ex- 
ecutor, to put the estate, as an undivided and unsettled 
interest, into the second partnership, still he was authorized 
to use in that business, under proper limitations, so large a 
portion of it, (six shares out of eight, excluding Dr. Boott's,) 
and it is manifest that he was, habitually, so regardless of all 
forms and mere legal duties, that nothing can be more im- 
probable than any such nice distinctions, made by him, as 
the case strictly called for. 

To take the remaining stock of the old firm into the 
new concern, and to employ all the funds of the estate 
in its operations, Mr. J. Wright Boott, considering the busi- 
ness safe and profitable, would, undoubtedly, have regarded 
as beneficial for the estate, as well as for the brothers, whom 
he took into partnership ; and, acting upon his own im- 
pulses of generosity towards those members of the family, 
who were not partners in the new concern, nothing would 
be more likely for him to do than to take the old stock into 
the new concern at its cost, even if it had, as Mr. Lowell 
suggests, somewhat fallen in value. Nor is it very unlikely 



560 



that Mr. Kirk Boott, then fresh from the army, or Mr. James 
Boott, then just come of age, both entirely without mercan- 
tile experience, would have acquiesced in such an arrange- 
ment, considering the advantages to be derived from identi- 
fying themselves, as completely as possible, with an old estab- 
lished house, whose business, according to the advertisement, 
was to be ^^ continued''^ by them. Whatever fall may have 
occurred in the value of the stock on hand by a recent 
change in the tariff of duties, this was, probably, looked upon 
as a thing temporary in its effect upon the general business 
of the house, and likely enough to be soon counteracted by 
other causes. None of the copartners could possibly, at that 
time, have foreseen the continued fall of prices, which Mr. 
Lowell says was caused by the subsequent restoration of the 
currency in England, — an event, which may have had, I 
admit, a silent operation, in preparatory measures, some time 
before the resumption actually occurred. 

Now, if this arrangement, (which, having no personal 
knowledge about it, I do not, of course, state as a fact, but 
as a probability for the reader to judge of,) was the real ba- 
sis, as I incline to believe, on which the new house started, 
what would have been the consequence? All the loss, aris- 
ing from causes referred to by Mr. Lowell, except the failure 
of the large debtor in England, must inevitably have fallen 
entirely upon the second house, and not upon the JiJ^st, 
Whatever loss had previously fallen upon the first house, Mr. 
J. Wright Boott must have shared, as a partner, proportionally 
with the estate. One fourth of it was his ; and, if Mr. Low- 
ell is any where near right concerning the probable extent 
of the loss, as derived from causes operating before March, 
1818, (when the first house expired,) one fourth of it was 
sufficient to have taken off very nearly the whole of the 
small property, which I suppose Mr. J. Wright Boott to have 
had, independently of that, which his father left him. What- 
ever losses on the original stock arose from causes operating 
after March, 1818, they fell upon the second house, exclu- 
sively, under the arrangement, which I assume ; and al- 
though that house had, as Mr. Lowell suggests, the power 



561 



to replenish its stock, and doubtless did, by new importa- 
tions at lower prices, still, according to Mr. Lowell, prices 
were constantly declining for a series of years, and con- 
stantly disappointing the expectations of importers. The 
second house seems to have been, always^ operating upon 
a falling market. 

Mr. J. Wright Boott's own share, as a partner in the second 
house, of the losses from this cause, upon a four years' busi- 
ness, added to the first purchase of stock at a high cost, is 
extremely likely to have much exceeded his distributive share 
of the divisible estate. But this was not all. He stood 
sponsor to the estate for all, that his brothers owed on their 
shares of the loss, beyond what they were able to pay. If he 
had sunk his share of the estate, they had sunk theirs ; and 
if he had permitted them, as will be found probable, to with- 
draw, in the mean time, and expend, or use for their own 
purposes, in the course of nine years, (from his father's death 
to the time of the settlement, which he made with them 
in 1826,) the greater part, or the whole, of their expected 
patrimony, or more, how could he have stood otherwise, at 
that time, than a large debtor to the estate ? — and, indeed, 
how could he have stood otherwise at the time of the forma- 
tion of Boott & Lowell ? The heaviest part of the ad- 
vances, for personal expenditure at least, must have been 
made previous to that time; especially to Mr. Kirk Boott, 
who, after that time, was drawing a salary of $3000 from his 
agency at Lowell. 

All Mr. Lowell has said, therefore, in reference to causes 
of loss in the liquidation of the first house, tends to confirm 
me in my belief of large loss encountered by the second 
house ; and yet, nothing in the case requires the hypothesis 
of any such enormous amount of loss, by that house, in its 
regular mercantile business, as Mr. Lowell is pleased to rep- 
resent that my former estimates suppose. This I shall make 
clear. 

71 



562 



CHAPTER LV. 



LOSSES, BY THE SECOND HOUSE OF KIRK BOOTT & SONS. ARGU- 
MENTS OF THE "reply" TO DISPROVE THEM. EVIDENCE OF 



Let us now see what Mr. Lowell has to say to my sug- 
gestion of large losses in business, sustained by the second 
house. 

He denies them altogether. He says there was a small 
profit. [L. p. 51. J Allow me to ask, then, which is likely 
to know best, he, or Mr. Kirk Boott, who was one of the 
partners? Mr. Kirk Boott writes, in 1826, (at which time 
the result of a business, terminated more than four years 
before, must have been fully ascertained,) "our losses hi 
business proved veri/ heavy f^ "he, [Mr. Wright Boott,] is 
wore in advance for me than I expected^ [Ante, p. 501.] 
Yet, Mr. Lowell, in the face of this declaration by one of 
the parties, has the temerity to declare that there was no 
loss, but a small gain ! 

How, then, does he get over Mr. Kirk Boott's express 
assertion to the contrary ? His course of argument is this : — 

" Now the copartnership of Mr. Wright Boott, Mr. Kiik Boott 
and Mr. James Boott had la>ted four years, from 1818 to 1822, and 
they must have settled four annual accounts. Mr. Kirk Boott had 
been the most active member of the firm, conversant with every de- 
tail of the business, and was a very accurate merchant. The only- 
losses, then-fore, that could have surprised him, were those resulting 
f)om the sale of their residual slock and the collection of the debts." 
[L. p. 46.] 

Hence, the reader is expected to infer, that Mr. Kirk Boott 
did not mean to speak of the general result of the business, 
but of the mere winding up of what may have been left, 
after previous profits had been divided. That is, the reader 
must infer that *• our losses iii business," stated without c^ual* 



663 



ification, did not prove ''very heavy," though Mr. Kirk Boott 
says they did. 

But where is the evidence of the assumed previous profits? 
The partners may have settled four annual accounts, for 
aught I know, as Mr. Lowell assumes; and they may have 
found, for aught he knows, loss in every one of them. This 
seems likely enough with a constantly falling market. But, 
says the "Reply," "the only losses, that could have sur- 
prised him, [Mr. Kirk Boott,] were those resulting from the 
sale of their residual stock, and the collection of the debts." 
What is that to the purpose? Mr. Kirk Boott expresses no 
surprise at the fact of loss. That he probably knew from 
year to year, so far as it was ascertained. All he intimates 
is, that it turned out, by the final winding up, larger than 
he had anticipated. My brother, he says, " is more in advance 
for me than I expected." This is the whole expression of- 
what Mr. Lowell calls surprise. It is not unlikely, however, 
that the business of that period may have been a constant 
deception to the partners themselves, in regard to the amount 
of loss by over-val nation of stock on hand, from time to time, 
compared with the results of decreasing prices ; and the loss- 
es may, on that account, and because of changes in the cur- 
rency, have turned out very much larger in the winding up 
than was foreseen. And I may remark, by the way, that 
although Mr. Kirk Boott is known to have been highly intel- 
ligent, and to have turned out an excellent man of business 
in the agency at Lowell, I am at a loss to imagine how he 
should have been, while a member of the firm of Kirk Boott 
& Sons, and especially in the outset of their business, '* a 
very accurate merchant." He had been brought up in the 
army, and wis never in a counting-room in his life, until he 
went into this house as a partner. He was obliged, here, 
to learn, by his own experience and excellent discernment, 
under his brother, Wright, who was, himself, in my opinion, 
not " a very accurate merchant," that knowledge of the 
details of business, which most merchants have acquired in 
the service of others, before they begin to operate for them^ 
selves. It would not seem very strange to me, if the full. 



564 



extent of the losses, they were encountering in their busi- 
ness, had not been duly measured and appreciated, at the 
time, by any one of the partners. 

But Mr. Lowell, after stating such reasons, as I have cited 
above, for doubting, a priori, the fact of a loss by the second 
firm, declares, positively, as follows : — " The inquiries I have 
made, for the purpose of this reply, have settled the que.siion. 
There were no such losses.''^ [L. p. 49.] 

Indeed ! How does he make that out ? Why, he says, 
truly, in the first place, that Mr. Kirk Boott, having been " a 
subaltern in the British army," till he went into the house in 
1818, had no property beyond his patrimony. In the next 
place, we are told, that, from 1822 to 1826, (the date of his 
settlement with Mr. J. Wright Boott,) he supported his fam- 
ily at Lowell, and informed the directors of the Merrimack 
Company that he could not live within his salary of $3000 
a year. This fact, also, I have no doubt of. Thence it is 
argued, — " Whatever sum, therefore, beyond his patrimony, 
he refunded to his brother, in the settlement of 1826, he 
mnst either have borrowed, or derived from the profits of the 
earlier years of the copartnership. There could be no other 
source." [L. p. 49.] And then, alluding to the sum bor- 
rowed from me for the purpose of the settlement, the " Re- 
ply" proceeds as follows : — 

"I find, tliat there remained in his hands, [Mr. Kirk Boott's,] 
after the adjustment of his accounts, the following property : 

Two shares in the Boston Manufacturing Company, S2,700 

Ten shares in the Merrimack Company, 1U,()U0 
Ten siiares in the Locks and Canals, on which had then 

been paid SooO each, 3,500 

His furniture, worth, perhaps, 4,000 

20,200 
Deduct the amount borrowed of Mr. Brooks, 10,000 



^10,200 



"He retained then the full amount of his patrimony, as stated by 
Mr. Wright Boott in the account which we are now discussing, and 
whigh must be taken, prima facie, as true." [L. p. 5U.] 



565 



This IS folloA<^ed up by a statement of Mr. James Boott's 
property, (in answer to my suggestion that his share of the 
loss was probably never fully restored to Mr. J. Wright 
Boott,) thus : — 

" Mr. "Brooks will, perhaps, have the jjcodness to inform us what 
golden opportunities Mr. Kirk Boott, a lieutenant in Lord Welling- 
ton's army, had enjoyed of accumulating a large amount of property. 

"That Mr. James Boott settled with his brother at the same time 
that Mr. Kirk Boott did, and repaid to Mr. Wright Boott his propor 
tion of the over-estimate of the profit of the preceding years is cer- 
tain ; for he transferred to Mr. Wright Boott, February 28, 182fi, 
five shares in the Mei-rimack Manufacturing Company. And what 
was his position after the settlement ? He had remaining, 

Five shares in the Boston Manufacturing Company, 

at SI 300, $6,500 

Five shares in the Merrimack Company, 5,00() 



$11,500 
These shares he still retains. 

" It thus appears, that, after paying their personal expenses, which, 
to my knowledge, during the year 1 was with them in their counting- 
room, were regularly charged to them, — and which UiUst have much 
exceeded (especially in the case of Mr. Kirk Boott, who was a mar- 
ried man.) the intei'est of Si 0,000, — both of the junior partners had 
their patrimony unaffected by any losses in business. In fact, there 
had been some small resulting j)iofit. 

"Thus fails utterly the attempt to account for a diminution of the 
property on the ground of any losses except such as occurred during 
the first partnership, when the father's estate was justly chargeable 
with his share of such losses." [L. pp. 51, 52.] 

This, then, is Mr. Lowell's demonstration, which he con- 
ceives to have " settled the question !" But does it not 
prove a little too much ? How happens it, that Mr. Kirk 
Boott, and Mr. James Boott, "after paying their personal 
expenses," should have come out of the copartnership ;ws^ 
alike^ or at least within $1300 of each other, in property ? 
Mr. James Boott, a young unmarried man, lived with his 
mother, at very little necessary expense. Mr. Kirk Boott, 
who could not live at Lowell on $3000 a year, had support- 
ed his family in Boston, during the partnership, at much 
greater cost than that, judging by his general style of living. 



566 



Now, if there were really no profits earned by the honse, 
whether it was supposed, at the time, to be earning them or 
not, Mr. Kirk Boott, in the five years from his father's death 
to the end of the copartnership, must have taken up, in more 
expense of living, nearly, or quite, his whole present patri- 
mony, supposing it, as I do, to have been $20,000. If it was 
only $10,000, as Mr. Lowell contends, so much the sooner 
must it have come to an end. And Mr. Kirk Boott would 
have been the more likely to draw freely for his household 
expense, if he erroneously supposed that the house was mak- 
ing money, as Mr. Lowell suggests ; for, the " Reply" assures 
us, that, while the formation of the house of Boott &< Lowell 
was under consideration, Mr. Kirk Boott told Mr. Lowell, 
" that the business was too good to be abandoned !" [L. p. 
28.] Mr. James Boott, on the other hand, living with his 
mother, could hardly have expended, without extravagance, 
more than the income of his supposed patrimony. This 
near coincidence of property, therefore, in 1826, if the fact 
were as Mr. Lowell states, would seem to indicate some 
cause in operation not alluded to by him, — something else 
than the mere preservation of •' their patrimony, unafiected 
by any losses in business." [L. p. 51.] 

Now, Mr. Lowell knows very well one fact, which is here 
entirely concealed. I never supposed that Mr. Kirk Boott 
had come out of '' Lord Wellington's army" with any thing 
more than his inheritance. But I might have suggested, 
though I did not, in my former pamphlet, one " golden 
opportunity," which Mr. Kirk Boott had enjoyed, of accu- 
mulating property, before the settlement with his brother in 
1826. — an opportunity judiciously improved by him, accord- 
ing to his circumstances, and as well known to Mr. Lowell, 
as to any man living. I refer to his Chelmsford speculation. 

He was the proprietor, individually, it seems, by the cor- 
respondence before referred to, of a large interest in the 
original enterprise. By advances from his brother, he was 
enabled to take and pay for, and by the same means, coupled 
with loans elsewhere of considerable amount, (some of which 
I might point out.) he was enabled to hold, until he could 



567 



advantageously sell, a large number of shares in the first 
stock of the Merrimack Company. That stock, besides 
yielding great dividends after the works were in operation, 
rose so hi^h, that, in December, 1825, when the stock had 
been doubled, and jvist after a dividend, I myself bought, at 
sixty per cent, advarice ! The right of doubling his stock, 
in 1824, must, alone, have been worth to Mr. Kirk Boott, a 
considerable sum. From Mr. Lowell's statement, it seems, 
he had sold out, at the time of the settlement with his broth- 
er, (March, 1826,) all but ten shares in that company, and 
that he took and field ten corresponding shares in the Locks 
and Canals, which corporation, upon its then foundation, 
was formed out of the Merrimack Company as at first consti- 
tuted, and became the owner of all the land and water-pow- 
er, except what was needed for the use of the Merrimack 
Company, as a manufacturing corporation. The stock of 
the Locks and Canals, besides making great dividends after 
a few years had passed, rose from its par of $500, as high, at 
one time, as $1800 or $1900 a share. 

This fact is notorious ; and Mr Kirk Boott sold one half 
of his Locks and Canals, when they were at or near, their 
highest point. That gentleman, himself, informed me, not 
long before his death, that the loan of $10,000, with which 
I had been able to accommodate him, in 1826, had been the 
means of earning for him, at least, twenty per cent, a year, 
beyond interest. In view of these facts, I think the reader 
will agree with me, that few men have had a more "golden 
opportunity" of accumulating a handsome property from 
means at first wholly borrowed, — with no property to bor- 
row upon, — than Mr. Kirk Boott had enjoyed by his fortu- 
nate position as one of the first founders of Lowell, with 
the aid of funds advanced to him by his brother. And, 
although he left but a moderate property at last, this is to be 
accounted for only by the heavy debt to be paid off for the 
losses in his old mercantile business ; by the inevitable antici- 
pation of his patrimony through large family expense while 
he lived in Boston ; by the continuance of a family expense 
beyoiid his salary after he lemoved to Lowell ; by the ad* 



568 



vances and loans he was obliged to rely upon, at first, for his 
purchases of manufacturing stock ; and by the heavy draw- 
back of an interest account constantly running against them. 
1 ought, indeed, to add one other cause, namely, his extraor- 
dinary and unremitting devotion to the interests of his 
employers, which, after the first fruits of the original specu- 
lation were reaped, and after the full care of the regular 
business had devolved upon him, rendered it impossible for 
him, with his high sense of honour and duty in such a 
trust, to improve, as many men might, the tempting oppor- 
tunities of speculating on his own account in the growing 
property about him. 

The particular profits, mentioned above as having accrued 
to Mr. Kirk Boott from his Locks and Canals, and from my 
loan to him in 1826, at simple interest without even collat- 
eral security, were realized, it is true, after the settlement of 
that year with his brother ; but, without going more partic- 
ularly into the course of Mr. Kirk Boott's operations previous 
to that time, I think the reader will see opportunity enough 
for him to have acquired, in the first four or five years of the 
Chelmsford speculation, with a title in the outset to ninety, 
out of six hundred, shares, sufficient property to enable him, 
with the aid of the $10,000 loan from me, to pay ofi" the 
$37,000 of debt, beyond his |20,000 of patrimony, which I 
suppose him to have paid to his brother in March, 1826, and 
yet to have had, as Mr. Lowell says he had, about $10,000 
left, after that settlement, beyond his debt to me ; — espe- 
cially, when we see that $27,300 of the debt to his brother 
was paid in the stock of the Boston Manufacturing Company 
at $1300 a share, though then worth in the market only 
$900 a share. It is in perfect keeping with Mr. J. Wright 
Boott's character, to believe, that, from feelings of generosity 
to his brother, he had, considerately, waited till a handsome 
profit had been accumulated out of the Chelmsford specula- 
tion, before he pressed for a settlement ; and it is manifest, 
that repayment of the large advances made on that account, 
and for the settlement of losses in the old mercantile part- 
-nership accQunts,..whicjbL. proved...!' very heavy,". .could not 



669 



have been had at a much earlier period without stripping his 
brother of every thing, and indeed, until some considerable 
amount of profit had been earned, could not have been had 
at all. Yet Mr. Lowell, well knowing the fact of this 
Chelmsford speculation, and of a large profit made in it, un- 
dertakes to say, without qualification, that " whatever sum, 
beyond his patrimony, he [Mr. Kirk Boott,] refunded to his 
brother Wright, [in the settlement of 1826,] he must have 
borrowed, or derived from the profits of the earlier years of 
the copartnership. There could he no other source P^ [L. 
p. 49.] 

In respect to Mr. James Boott, Mr. Lowell has made one 
statement, which, if it be a fact, is new to me. In account- 
ing for sixteen shares of the Merrimack stock, which stood 
in Mr. J. Wright Boott's name, and were sold by him, in 
1824, Mr. Lowell, for the purpose of answering the sugges- 
tion, that, for aught that appeared, the profit upon that sale 
ought to have been credited to the estate in the account of 
1844, states, that twelve of the shares belonged to Mrs. F. 
Boott and her children, and that the other four '' belonged 
jointly to himself, Mr. Kirk Boott, and Mr. James Boott, 
being the residue of their interest as owners of one fourth 
part of the original speculation," [L. p. 72.] meaning the 
Chelmsford speculation. That is, the " Reply" treats that 
speculation as a part of the business of Kirk Boott & Sons, 
No. 2. and assigns one fourth part of it to that house. 

If Mr. James Boott had any such interest in that concern, 
it seems, at least, not to have been known to the leading 
associates. Mr. J. Wright Boott and Mr. Kirk Boott, accord- 
ing to the account given by Mr. Appleton in the correspond- 
ence, appear to have subscribed, separately and individually, 
for ninety shares each. Their shares, together, were one 
hundred and eighty, out of six hundred, — considerably more 
than ^^ one fourth part^^ but, — which is more material, — Mr. 
James Boott does not appear to have been a party to the 
transaction. The fact I believe to be, that he was admitted, 
afterwards, by his brothers to a small interest under them ; 
and it may be that his profit upon that sub-ioterest, added to 

72 



570 



the five shares of Merrimack, which he transferred to Mr. 
J. Wright Boottj February 25, 1826, when they were worth 
a considerable advance, and to the ten shares of Locks 
and Canals, which he transferred to him, on the same day, 
may, together witli his share of the patrimony, estimated at 
$20,000, have been sufficient to repay his share of the loss 
in the business of the firm, and also the advances, which had 
been made on his particular account, and to have left the 
ten shares of manufacturing stock, which, Mr. Lowell says, 
he still owned, at the time of the " Reply." Since his per- 
sonal expenses ought to have fallen much within the inter- 
est of his patrimony, he had not a like occasion with Mr. 
Kirk Boott to draw largely from the firm, or to place his 
brother under advance for him, unless on account of the 
Chelmsford speculation, (if he had any considerable interest 
in that,) and for the settlement of his share of the losses of 
the house. His total debt to Mr. J. Wright Boott, in 1826, 
ought to have been, and appears to have been, so far as we 
have means of judging, much smaller than Mr. Kirk Boott's, 
and may, contrary to my first supposition, have been wholly 
paid. Yet, the fact that he was permitted to retain ten 
shares of manufacturing stock, after the partnership settle- 
ment, is not very strong proof to my mind that the debt was, 
in truth, fully paid. Mr. J. Wright Boott was too irregular 
in his generosities, to permit any confident conclusion to be 
drawn from such a fact. 

It now appears, however, from Mr. Lowell's statement, 
[L. p. 51.] that, after the partnership settlement of February 
or March, 1826, Mr. James Boott had remaining, and retain- 
ed, up to the time of the writing of the " Reply," five shares 
in the Boston Manufacturing Company, at a cost of $1300 a 
share, and five shares in the Merrimack at par, making, 
together, $11,500. On the other hand, it is admitted [L. p. 
51.] that, on the 28th of February, he transferred to his broth- 
er, in the settlement between them, five shares of the Merri- 
mack, which, at its market value, could not then have been 
worth less than $6000. And it appears, by the records of the 
Locks and Canals, that he transferred in like manner, at the 
same time, ten shares of that stock, on which, the " Reply" 



671 



tells us, $350 a share had then been paid in, [L. p. 50.] and 
which, with the advance upon them, may be safely set 
down at $4000. That is, $10,000, in cash, or its equiva- 
lent, was actually paid. 

But Mr. James Boott must also have been credited, in any 
settlement of that date, with the profit upon his share in the 
Chelmsford speculation, so far as any portion of the specula- 
tion had been on a joint account, in which he was interested. 
That there was such a joint account, on which sales were 
made, we are told by the "Reply," although we are kept in 
the dark concerning its amount. That a large profit, in pro- 
portion to its amount, must have been realized, we know 
from the successful character of the enterprise, and from the 
rapid rise in the market prices of the Merrimack stock ; and 
since Mr. James Boott was not an ostensible subscriber to 
the Chelmsford enterprise, we may fairly presume that his 
share of the proceeds went into his general account with 
Mr. J. Wright Boott. Yet, besides his share of that profit, 
whatever it may have been, $10,000, at least, was paid by 
him to Mr. J. Wright Boott in the transfers above mentioned. 
What can we infer from all this, but large loss in the busi- 
ness of the second house, of which Mr. James Boott's share, 
was thus repaid, in whole or in part, by his share of the 
profit in the Chelmsford speculation and by transfers of 
stocks, above shown, to the amount of $10,000 ? 

One cannot but observe, besides, a remarkable coincidence, 
now apparent, which serves to corroborate the idea, that a 
distributive share of the divisible estate had always been 
estimated at $20,000, and that all parties, who had oppor- 
tunity to obtain possession of their property before Mr. J. 
Wright Boott's great embarrassments, received that amount. 
Mr. James Boott was still holding, according to the '' Reply," 
property, which had cost to Mr. J. Wright Boott $11,500 

But he had previously parted, in the settlement 
of the old partnership account, with five shares 
of Merrimack, and ten of Locks and Canals, which, 
at par, had cost, 8,500 



This makes, exactly, $20,000 



572 



What could this property have represented, except Mr. 
James Boott's estimated share of his father's estate ? He 
had no other property when he went into the house of Kirk 
Boott &> Sons, No. 2 ; he earned nothing there, — for its busi- 
ness resulted in a heavy loss, as Mr. Kirk Boott declares. 
No part of the Chelmsford speculation had stood in Mr. 
James Boott's name ] the profits upon that must have been, 
like the losses in trade, only items of an unsettled account 
with Mr. J. Wright Boott, until the settlement of 1826. 
Yet, previous to that settlement, he held, as his individual 
property, stocks, which had cost $20,000. Had he not been 
allowed, then, by the executor, to take up funds of the es- 
tate to that amount, because it was understood to be his 
proper share of it ? 

So, in respect to Mr. Wells, it appears by the extract from 
a letter of Mr. Ralston, heretofore introduced, [Ante, p. 331.] 
that that gentleman held, in 1827-8, six shares of Merri- 
mack, six of Locks and Canals, and three of the Boston 
Manufacturing Company ; and I find, from the records of 
the Locks and Canals, that, in February, 1826, at a date 
nearly corresponding with the partnership settlement of Mr. 
J. Wright Boott with his brothers, Mr. Wells transferred to 
Mr. J. Wright Boott six shares in the Locks and Canals. 
That is to say, previous to that transfer, Mr. Wells was hold- 
ing shares, in the two companies above-named, which, ac- 
cording to the prices given by Mr. Lowell for the accounts 
of Mr. Kirk Boott and Mr. James Boott, had cost upwards of 
$14,000. Whence did they come, but from the funds of the 
estate ? And how much, if a distributable share of the estate 
was $20,000, would Mr. Wells have been entitled to? It 
has been already shown, that the testator had directed that a 
particular note of Mr. Wells for the sum of $4000, taken up 
by the testator, should, with the interest upon it, be charged 
to Mrs. Wells, ''for which she must account, with the other 
sums already charged to her^ out of the legacy which I 
have bequeathed to the said Frances." [Ante, p. 559.] 
What these " other sums" were, I am not informed. They 
were, at least, large enough to be an object of attention to 



573 



the testator, and to be treated as an advancement. If we 
suppose them to have amomited, all together, to three or four 
thousand dollars only, we shall arrive at the conchision that 
another heir, who received his portion early, was dealt with 
upon the basis of $20,000, or thereabouts, to a share. 

Besides these stocks, which Mr. Wells held on account of 
the balance of his wife's patrimony beyond the advances 
charged to her by the testator, it is personally known to me, 
that Mr. J. Wright Boott made loans of money, occasionally, 
to Mr. Wells. The ten shares of Locks and Canals, trans- 
ferred by Mr. Wells to Mr. J. Wright Boott, in February, 
1826, I infer to have been a repayment of some of these 
loans. It appears to have been called for at the time of Mr. 
J. Wright Boott's call on his brothers for the settlement of 
the over-advances on their respective accounts, because he 
was then intending, as we are told by Mr. Kirk Boott, "to 
settle the estate, and pay over the balances," to those of the 
heirs, who had not already received their full shares. 

It may also be noticed, that some light is thrown, by the 
facts now shown to the reader, upon the manner, in which 
payments were made to some of the heirs. It will be remem- 
bered, that Mr. J. Wright Boott was an original subscriber, 
in his own name, to fifty-six shares of the first stock of the 
Merrimack Manufacturing Company, which entitled him to 
fifty-six shares of the second issue, made in 1824 ; but that 
he appeared to be a subscriber for forty shares only of that 
second issue ; and it was remarked, that his right of sub- 
scription for the remaining sixteen shares must have been 
transferred to somebody, and yet did not appear to have been 
sold for the benefit of the estate, since the premium upon 
them does not appear in the account of 1844. [Ante, p. 
391.] Now, if the original papers on this subject were 
hunted up, I think it would be found, that Mr. J. Wright 
Boott transferred his right to subscribe for ten of those shares 
to Mr. James Boott, and his right to subscribe for the other 
six to Mr. Wells. This, I believe, was the source of their 
title to the ten shares and the six shares, which they are 
respectively found to have held in the Merrimack Company ; 



574 



and their ownership of these shares in the Merrimack Com- 
pany gave them their title to the corresponding number of 
Locks and Canals. The funds, necessary to pay the assess- 
ments on all these shares, except so far as they were paid by 
accruing dividends, were, undoubtedly, furnished by Mr. J. 
Wright Boott ; indeed, I understood so, at the time, in re- 
spect to shares held by Mr. Wells ; and, in that form, the full 
amount, which they were respectively entitled to receive 
from the estate, was gradually paid up by the executor, — at 
least, such is my inference, — though without any regular set- 
tlement. In the mean time, the old partnership business of 
Kirk Boott & Sons, No. 2, was wound up with great loss ; 
and other loans and advances had been made, which led to 
the reclamations of February, 1826, when a purpose was 
entertained, but for some reason unfortunately never execut- 
ed, of settling the estate, and paying over all unpaid balances. 

The payments and loans to Mr. Wells, above mentioned, 
were, of course, independent of the sums afterwards covered 
by the note of Robert Lilly, as liquidator of the firm of 
Wells & Lilly, for the sum of $14,000, which note was dated 
in December, 1828, and afterwards secured by mortgage, as 
above shown. 

The reader now sees some of the reasons, which may well 
have led Mr. Wells to believe, concerning Mr. J. Wright 
Boott, that " He has probably given to all much more than 
they were entitled to receive from their father's estate." [L. 
p. 56.] The phrase used by Mr. Wells, is not so inappro- 
priate as it might at first seem ; for it was one of Mr. J. 
Wright Boott's peculiarities always to speak of his irregular 
distributions as gifts. Upon one occasion, after the pay- 
ment of the $10,000 to Mr. Lyman, he transferred to that 
gentleman, in addition, nine shares of manufacturing stock, 
which Mr. Lyman understood to be a further payment on 
account of his wife's share of the estate ; but Mr. Boott after- 
wards, chose to speak of them as a gift, and Mr. Lyman, not 
choosing to hold them on those terms, retransferred them to 
Mr. Boott. This fact I had from Mr. Lyman, and the trans- 



575 



fers and retransfers appear by the records of the companies. 
[B. App. pp. 30, 32.] 

A degree of uncertainty, of course, hangs over some of the 
foregoing inferences, while we are left to grope in the dark, 
without regular accounts to guide us. But why does Mr. 
Lowell put us to speculate in these matters ? Has he not 
the evidence of these settlements in his hands ? Can he not 
show, if he would, what they were, precisely? Why, espe- 
cially, having this evidence at hand, does he, instead of pro- 
ducing it, enter into a specious argument to show, — from the 
slight circumstance of a nearly equal amount of property 
possessed by Mr. Kirk Boott and by Mr. James Boott, respec- 
tively, after the partnership settlement, and an amount nearly 
corresponding with the sum, which Mr. Lowell assumes to 
have been a share of the estate, — that there could have been 
no loss in the business of the partnership, and no absorption 
of their patrimony in that ? And why, when he presents 
that argument, does he withhold, in that connexion, so mate- 
rial a fact as the Chelmsford speculation ? And why does 
he withhold so material a fact as the transfer by Mr. James 
Boott, at the time of the settlement, of ten shares of Locks 
and Canals, in addition to the five shares of Merrimack, 
which I had found to have been transferred, and stated for- 
merly, being all the evidence then known to me of a settle- 
ment by Mr. James Boott ? 

Connected with these concealments, every fact stated, only 
tends to confirm the idea of a large loss sustained by the 
second house, sufficient, in my belief, to have swept off Mr. 
J. Wright Boott's own share of the common patrimony ; and 
a loss by the elder house is insisted on by Mr. Lowell of a 
magnitude sufficient to have absorbed all Mr. Boott was 
worth, in my estimation, before his father's death. And 
although this latter loss, whatever it may have been, must 
have fallen threefold on the estate, it will be remembered 
that it was after all that loss was, or should have been, fully 
ascertained^ that Mr. J. Wright Boott not only represented the 
shares of the heirs to be $20,000 each, but acted upon that 
representation in allowing that amount to some of the heirs, 



576 



as would seem, by the settlements he made in several instan- 
ces, so far as Mr. Lowell has been pleased to afford us light 
to discern the terms of those settlements. 

One further inquiry will naturally present itself to the 
reader. If Mr. Kirk Boott, and possibly Mr. James Boott, 
acquired, from their shares in the Chelmsford speculation, 
profit enough to enable them, with the other means shown, 
to repay their respective shares of loss in the business of 
Kirk Boott and Sons, No. 2, and to have something left, 
why did not Mr. J. Wright Boott also ? Simply because he 
did not sell out, as Mr. Kirk Boott did, (and Mr. James 
Boott's original interest, if he had one, must have been sold 
out also, any considerable portion of his Merrimack stock, — 
the right to which, and its rapid advance in market price, 
and the large dividends made after the works were in com- 
plete operation, constituted, so far as I am informed, the 
whole profit of the Chelmsford enterprise. Mr. J. Wright 
Boott, it seems, took, and held, the whole of his original 
subscription ; he added to it, at the time of the second issue, 
more than he then sold out ; and he appropriated nearly or 
quite the whole of that which he held, finally, if not at first, 
in his own mind, as it would seem, (though no act, till long 
after, openly evinced it,) partly to Mrs. F. Boott and his 
wards, and the residue as a substitute for the stocks belong- 
ing to the trust funds of his father's estate, which he had 
transferred to Boott & Lowell, and which they had sold. 
He kept his interest in the Merrimack Company, apparently, 
in so vague and uncertain a position that what was his, and 
what the property of one party or of another, whom he rep- 
resented, he could not probably, himself, have easily deter- 
mined. He seems to have turned this property, in his own 
mind at least, to one account or another, as circumstances at 
the moment seemed to make expedient, and as he thought to 
be for the interest of others, perhaps, rather than his own, 
until his necessities for money, to be used in the foundry, 
compelled him, at last, to pledge the stock, and to cover it 
with such embarrassments that he had no longer its control. 
For the same reason, (pressure for money,) he was unable 



577 



to hold the shares in the Locks and Canals, which he became 
entitled to, and took, share for share. That is to say, holding 
at that time eighty shares of Merrimack in his own name, he 
was an original subscriber in his own name, for eighty cor- 
responding shares of Locks and Canals ; but, within the first 
two years^ before the stock was fully paid in, before any div- 
idends had accrued, and while the shares were worth in the 
market only about par and interest, he sold sixty-nine shares. 
There were but eleven left ,• of these, eight were taken on 
his guardianship account. He acquired, in 1826, sixteen 
more, through settlements with persons, for whom he was in 
advance ; but, within two years, he sold out all but his guard- 
ianship shares. Mr. Kirk Boott, on the other hand, contin- 
ued to hold a fair proportion of this stock to a late period, 
some of it to his death, and it added considerably to his 
estate. 

Mr. J. Wright Boott parted, early, with the whole of his 
Locks and Canals, as above stated, except a very few shares 
retained on his guardianship account ; and the shares, he 
parted with, produced him little or no profit ; since the oper- 
ation, with this stock, was quite a reverse to that of the Mer- 
rimack stock. The Merrimack stock rose very rapidly, and 
early sales were made at great profit. The Locks and Canals 
stock rose slowly at first, and very gradually, to near four 
times its par, and the profit upon this was to the long holder. 
How diiTerent would have been the result of Mr. J. Wright 
Boott 's trust account, had he sold for the estate one half of 
the Merrimack stock, which, though in his own name, really 
belonged to the estate, at its market price of fifty or sixty per 
cent, advance, and had he taken and retained, for the same 
account, the corresponding shares of Locks and Canals ! He 
kept that, of which he should have sold a part, and sold that, 
of which he should have kept a part, as the event proved ; 
and he sold his Locks and Canals, not so much because his 
judgement dictated a sale, so far as appears, as by reason of 
his necessities for money, growing out of speculations, engag- 
ed in, unwarrantably and beyond his means, though, as he 
no doubt thought and intended at the time, for the benefit 

73 



578 



of the family. This fact helps us to understand the remark, 
formerly made by Mr. Lowell : — '' If you, Mr. Brooks, or I, 
or any good man of business, had had the care of that estate, 
what a noble property it would have been." [B. App. p. 48.] 

It will be perceived, therefore, that I give to Mr. J. Wright 
Boott ample credit, as I have ever done, for having acted 
throughout, mainly, with the design of aiding others of the 
family more than himself, and certainly not upon merely self- 
ish principles ; but I show, at the same time, by his course 
of management, the grossest unfitness to discharge the duties 
of an executor and trustee ; and I show that the consequen- 
ces of his mismanagement, however generous the motives, 
which may have led to it, were ruin to himself, great loss to 
the estate, and utter inability to repair the consequences of 
his generosity to some by rendering bare justice to others. 
And this is my whole case in respect to Mr. J. Wright Boott. 

I think I have accounted also, satisfactorily, for the fact 
that he made no profit for himself out of the Lowell specula- 
tion, because, so far as he had any clear idea upon the sub- 
ject, he considered that as belonging to the parties, whose 
funds he used. And so, in equity, it did ; his own property 
being utterly lost, although he may not have been, and prob- 
ably was not, at that time, fully sensible of this fact, and cer- 
tainly was not ready to avow it, until the sudden disclosure 
to Mr. Kirk Boott and myself in 1830. 

In the mean time, it is not remarkable that Mr. J. Wright 
Boott should have been commonly reputed rich, before his 
embarrassments in the foundry became known. A man, who 
subscribed so largely to new enterprises, who paid promptly 
what he subscribed, who held at one time $96,000 of the 
Merrimack stock, and $30,000 of the Boston, and took eighty 
shares of the Locks and Canals, — all standing (prior to 1826) 
unpledged, and in his own private name, — and who was, at 
the same time apparently wielding a considerable capital in 
trade, first as a member of the firm of Boott & Lowell, and 
afterwards in the business of the foundry, — such a man 
might well be supposed to be possessed of a large fortune by 
those, who knew nothing of the private trusts, on which the 



579 



property was held, or of the funds employed in its purchase, 
or of the state of his accounts with members of his own 
family. If the received opinions of the clerks had been 
gathered, shortly before the exposition of 1830, they would, 
perhaps, have amplified his " private fortune " to two or three 
hundred thousand dollars. Yet, who does not now see that 
he was, in truth, at that time, hopelessly insolvent ? And 
who can reasonably doubt, upon the facts disclosed, that, if 
all his affairs had been brought to a state of complete liquida- 
tion during the existence of the house of Boott 60 Lowell, 
he must have been found, even at that early period, quite 
unable to account, in money, or its equivalent, for the prop- 
erty of his father's estate ? 



CHAPTER LYI. 

CONCEALMENT OF FACTS, CONNECTED WITH THE HOUSE OF BOOTT 
&, LOWELL. SUMMARY OF PARTICULAR LOSSES, THROUGH THE 
MISMANAGEMENT OF MR. BOOTT. 

Having now disposed of the two firms of Kirk Boott &> 
Sons, we come to that of Boott & Lowell, formed Jan. 1, 
1822, dissolved July 1, 1824. 

Here, at least, Mr. Lowell cannot plead ignorance or un- 
certainty ; and we have a right to look, in this part of the 
case, for a clear and satisfactory discharge of that solemn 
*'duty to the memory of Mr. Boott," which, according to 
Mr. Lowell's own estimate of duty, promulgated at the outset 
of his publication, " requires that I [Mr. Lowell] should give 
some account of such facts within my own knowledge, as 
may elucidate the matters in controversy." [L. p. 22.] Yet, 
strange to tell, it is of this house, and of the executor's man- 



580 



agement during its existence, — a period embracing so large 
and active a portion of the executorship, and so many im- 
portant transactions of the house concerning the estate, in 
which Mr. Lowell must have participated and acted, — that 
the " Reply " discloses least ! Much time and space are de- 
voted, in that pamphlet, to the supposed history of the several 
preceding firms, and to a consideration of the probabilities of 
gain or loss in each, affecting the relative position of Mr. 
J. Wright Boott and his father's estate. Of all this, it appears 
that Mr. Lowell has little or no absolute knowledge. But of 
those transactions, which he was personally acquainted with, 
connected with the house of Boott & Lowell, whose books 
were in his own possession, what has he disclosed ? 

We are told, when it is an object to make out a large pri- 
vate fortune for Mr. Boott, that he put into the concern of 
Boott & Lowell, originally, a capital of $40,000. But we 
have cause to believe, from what we have seen, [Ante, Ch. 
24.] that this capital was all borrowed ; and we are not told 
that Mr. Boott increased his property by the operations of 
Boott &. Lowell. Is it not fair to infer, from this silence, 
that his property, if he had any, was in fact diminished there 
by a losing business ? The probate account of 1844 also 
tells us, that, after the formation of the trust fund of 1818, 
by moneys drawn from the first house of Kirk Boott & Sons, 
near $70,000 more of the estate's money came to the execu- 
tor out of the house of Boott &> Lowell. How it got there, — 
what it proceeded from, — how and when it was paid over, — 
the ''Reply" does not condescend to inform us, although its 
author was most emphatically called upon, by my former 
pamphlet, to explain such matters. We now fiind, that, be- 
sides this $70,000, (nearly,) mentioned in the probate account 
as coming from Boott & Lowell, for property of the estate 
realized after the $117,000, (nearly,) which had been invested 
in the trust fund of 1818, at least $52,000, of the specific 
property of that trust fund, perhaps much more, was taken 
away from the fund, and transferred, specifically, by the ex- 
ecutor, to Boott & liowell, and that this specific trust property 
was, afterwards, disposed of by Boott & Lowell ; but what 



581 



was done with the moneys, we have never been informed to 
this day. They may have gone, sooner or later, to pay for 
more or less of the Merrimack shares, purchased by Mr. Boott 
in his own name. And they may not. They do not appear, 
at any rate, to have gone, directly, or immediately, to that 
use. We have, up to the present moment, no account of 
them, nor of the interest or profits upon them, while in the 
hands of Boott &> Lowell ; nor of the interest and profits 
upon the $70,000, which we are told of as coming from 
liquidation by Boott & Lowell. 

I do not mean to suggest a doubt, (though I have no in- 
formation on the subject, ) that Boott &> Lowell may have 
settled an account, at some time, with Mr. J. Wright Boott ,* 
that is, that Mr. Boott may have settled an account with 
himself and his partner. But what was it ? What gains and 
losses in the liquidation does it show? What charges and 
allowances to the liquidators does it contain? Why does 
not the probate account, drawn up by Mr. Lowell from the 
books of Boott & Lowell, show the facts concerning stocks 
of the estate bought and sold through that house, and con- 
cerning the employment of other moneys of the estate while 
lying there ? Why is it not even intimated by the account 
that such transactions ever existed ? And why is Mr. Lowell, 
while professing to enlighten the public, and declaiming 
against me for groping in darkness and ignorance in search 
of a conjectural truth, utterly silent in his pamphlet upon 
those transactions, intimately known to himself? Why are 
we told of the probabilities of great loss to the estate in the 
winding up of the first Kirk Boott & Sons ? Why are we 
told, with the positiveness of personal knowledge, that there 
was no loss sustained by Mr. J. Wright Boott in the winding 
up of the second Kirk Boott & Sons ? In neither of these 
houses had Mr. Lowell any concern, nor, as he says, did he 
ever, once, even see the partnership leger. And why are we 
not told whether Mr. J. Wright Boott increased or dimin- 
ished his private fortune in the business of Boott & Lowell, — 
the only house about whose afi'airs Mr. Lowell really knows 
any thing ? And, especially, why are we kept uninformed 



582 



respecting $120,000, at least, perhaps much more, of the 
estate's money, which that house had the handling of, be- 
sides $40,000, probably, of the money of Mr. Boott's wards, 
for which the estate was liable ? * 

I shall hazard no conjectures on this subject. I pause for 
another " Reply. ^'^ I shall have occasion to allude to the 
subject again, in connexion with other points of Mr. Lowell's 
conduct. At present, I only ask the reader not to forget 
these facts : That the probate account states nothing touch- 
ing any connexion of Boott & Lowell with the estate's prop- 
erty, except that it charges the executor with $69,389 99, 
as received from them in liquidation of the outstanding 
property of Kirk Boott &> Sons, without showing when, 
how, or in what sums, it was received by the executor ; that 
it states gain and losses on sales of stocks belonging to the 
trust fund of 1818, without showing when, or to whom, or 
by whom, the sales were made ; that all the sales, so far as 
traced, which involve loss, now turn out to have been made 
either to Boott & Lowell, or by Boott &/ Lowell, as agents 
for the executor ; that the final sales of these stocks, when 
sold in the name of Boott & Lowell, were made by Mr. 
Lowell, himself, while Mr. Boott was in England ; that there 
were no investments made by or for the executor, that I have 
been able to discover, adequate to take up the proceeds, and 
corresponding with the sales in times and sums ; that the 
account was formerly complained of by me for its extreme 
generality, and for its omission to state such particulars as 
were needful, to enable an interested party to see whether 

^Capital originally put in by Mr. Boott, apparently borrowed from his 

wards, to whom the estate was liable, $40,000 00 

Proceeds of stocks belonging to his trust fund, transferred afterwards 

to Boott & Lowell, as the records of transfers show, 52,853 43 

Money said to have been collected for the executor by Boott & Lowell, 
from the outstanding effects of Kirk Boott & Sons, and charged as 
such in the account of 1844, 69,389 99 



Amount apparently furnished by Mr. Boott from his father's estate, or 

for which the estate was liable, 162,243 42 

Query, respecting U. S. six per cent, stock, not yet traced, 22,000 1 

If this amount, furnished by Mr. Boott, passed into the business of Boott & Low- 
ell, how much did Mr. Lowell famish to that house 1 



583 



the executor had rightly charged himself with all he was 
chargeable for, even supposing its positive statements to be 
literally true ; that it was also complained of for its omission 
to state much, that must have been received by the executor, 
to accord with his own representations and acts, and for its 
omission to connect the sums, admitted to have been re- 
ceived, with the property, admitted to be on hand, at the end 
of the account, or to show what intermediate investments 
and changes of investment, or what other use of the money, 
had been made ; that Mr. Lowell declares the account to be 
full and complete as it stands, — a true history of the entire 
executorship, — and, that, while he professes to give a full 
explanation, according to his knowledge, of all the mercan- 
tile transactions, connected with the property of the estate, 
for the purpose of establishing the truth and completeness of 
the account, — holding it to be a duty to disclose such facts 
within his own knowledge, " as may elucidate the matters in 
controversy," — he has, hitherto, entirely concealed all those 
facts, which are now proved, respecting changes of invest- 
ment in the time of Boott & Lowell, and respecting sales of 
approved stocks at a loss, either to or by Boott & Lowell, 
without any corresponding re-investment, unless as capital in 
trade, or as a loan to Boott & Lowell ; that he has under- 
taken to settle questions, in the mind of his readers, by infer- 
ence from remote and collateral evidence, which accounts 
and entries in the books of that house must determine, 
directly and conclusively, one way or the other, but which 
are, nevertheless, kept wholly out of sight ; and, finally, that 
truths now detected, have been obscured and covered up by 
bold general averments of a contrary tendency, fallacious 
arguments upon partial disclosures of particulars, which will 
not even bear the test of comparison among themselves, and 
by a cloud of invective, sarcasm, and irony, founded either 
upon charges I never made, or upon mistakes of mine in 
matters scarcely material to the main issues, and upon other 
mistakes imputed to me, but which turn out to be either 
mistakes, or mis-statements, of the "Reply." 

I believe, I have now shown, that the account of 1844 



584 



fares no better, upon a view of affairs previous to 1830, so far 
as they are known, than it did by a comparison of its state- 
ments with facts of subsequent date, which are accurately 
known. I believe, I have shown, that, although nobody, 
now living, may know what the estate of Mr. Boott, senior, 
really turned out to be, enough is known to make it morally 
certain, that a much larger amount of property came to the 
executor's hands than has yet been accounted for, and that 
Mr. Lowell can give a much better account of it, if he pleases, 
than has yet been given. I have shown a probability, at 
least, that $100,000 more than the probate account states 
was received by the executor, and that $60,000 more than is 
therein stated was paid by him to some of the heirs, or per- 
mitted to go to their use ; that Mrs. Boott's trust fund was 
deficient, upon the accoimt of November 18, 1844, as it 
stands, even after allowing the stocks to be charged at their 
cost to Mr. Boott, by about $3,700 

That the trust fund for the aunts is not thereby 

accounted for at all, amounting to about 11,100 

That the shares of Boston Manufacturing Com- 
pany, charged to the estate at $1300 a share, 
came to Mr. Boott in the settlement of a part- 
nership account, not concerning the estate, at a 
time when they were worth only $900 a share, 
and that this difference, for aught that yet ap- 
pears, could not, justly, be charged to the estate, 
being, upon twenty-one shares, 8,400 

That, although most, if not all, the other heirs 
probably received $20,000,* as the reputed divi- 
dend of the estate, due equally to all, Mrs. 
Brooks was under-paid by 10,000f 



33,200 

* Dr. Francis Boott, when he went to London, in 1818; Mr. Wells, by pay- 
ments, at various times, deducting advances charged by the testator ; JMi'. Kirk 
Boott, and Mr. James Boott, by credit in the partnership settlements of 1826 ; Mr. 
Lyman and Mr. Ralston, by the payment of $10,000 each, in 1821-2, and by al- 
lowance for the residue in the settlement of the concerns of the foundry, in 1831. 

1 If furniture, purchased without consulting her, and placed at the time in the 



585 



Brought forward, 33,200 

That Mr. William Boott, — charging to him all, 
that seems to have been properly chargeable 
against his patrimony, out of his expenses in 
Europe, and, taking that amount to be as Mr. 
Lowell states it, — was, probably, under-paid by 
about 18,000 



51,200 



And that Mr. J. Wright Boott, without the previous 
authority, consent, or knowledge of his mother, 
subtracted from the principal and income of the 
trust fund, after it was re-established in 1830, 
for the payment of his own debts, due and paid 
chiefly to Mr. Lowell, about 65,700 



This exhibits an actual ascertained deficiency, due 
to the heirs and their mother, at the time the 
account was rendered, (without reckoning in- 
terest on the principal sums,) of 116,900 

If interest were charged upon them, the sum would proba- 
bly amount to two or three hundred thousand dollars ! Yet, 
the account claimed a '' cash balance due to the executor " of 
$25,000! And this account was permitted, by compromise, 
for the sake of peace, to pass with an allowance of that 
claim, for the purpose of paying Mr. Lowell ! And Mr. Low- 
ell, upon the strength of that allowance, has had the hardi- 
hood to assert, at first, in my absence, and without my 
knowledge, but since, publicly, in print, that this fact is 
proof that I had falsely charged Mr. Boott with mismanage- 
ment of his father's estate, and unfitness for such a trust ! 
Thus, even my own concession for his benefit, — in sufi'ering 
the account to pass without question, and thereby allowing 
Mr. Lowell to pay himself out of the property of the estate, — 
is, most unscrupulously, used as his principal weapon against 
me ! ! 

light of a gift, is considered to be a charge upon her patrimony, and Mr. Lowell's as- 
sumption that it cost $4000 is adopted, interest on the unpaid share would exceed 

that sum. 

74 



586 



CHAPTER LVII. 

IN WHAT MY SUPPOSED CHARGE OF MISMANAGEMENT, AGAINST MR. 
BOOTT, CONSISTED. 

If the views, I have now submitted to the reader, concern- 
ing the statements and the omissions of the probate account, 
compared with well established facts, are but a tolerable 
approximation to the truth, they must, at least, set one ques- 
tion at rest. That is to say : — supposing me to have charged 
Mr. Boott, in his life-time, as plainly, offensively, and inex- 
cusably, as Mr. Lowell could desire, with having misman- 
aged his father's estate, and with having occasioned great 
loss to it, by neglect, or disregard, of the ordinary duties of 
an executor, the charge, instead of being a false one, as Mr. 
Lowell gave out, would now stand proved to have been in- 
contestibly true. In respect to the course, I took, to effect a 
change of the trusteeship, so far as my justification depends 
upon the single question whether the executor had managed 
the funds, committed to his keeping, properly or improperly, 
I have nothing more to say. But, there are other points of 
inquiry, touching Mr. Boott's fitness, in 1844, to be the family 
trustee; and the ^' Reply" presents other issues, respecting 
the propriety of my conduct towards Mr. Boott, and, also, re- 
specting the conduct of Mr. Lowell towards me. 

Most of these topics connect themselves, more appropri- 
ately, with another branch of this controversy, relating to Mr. 
Boott's own conduct, in other than pecuniary matters, and to 
his deranged state of mind. But, some of them are so im- 
mediately connected with the subject of the probate account, 
that it seems proper to dispose of them here. 

One question, concerning myself, arises thus : — The im- 
pression created, and apparently intended to be created, by 
the " Reply," is, that I had taken pains, without provocation 
or excuse, to injure Mr. Boott's reputation in respect to his 



587 



conduct as executor, and that I had, purposely, insulted him, 
and wounded his feelings, by charging him, personally and 
offensively, with the fact. Is there any just foundation for 
this idea? 

I answer by resuming my narrative. 

We left it with a view of the state of Mr. Boott's affairs at 
the date of the settlement of his guardianship account, early 
in 1835 ; from which point of time, I have only taken some 
prospective glances. There was no prominent event, indeed, 
affecting the subject of accounts, until the year 1844, when 
circumstances made it imperative that an executor's account 
should be settled. In the meantime, Mr. Boott had remained 
out of business, living in his mother's house, going into no 
society, and occupied with nothing but his green-house and 
garden, of which he was extremely fond. The reduction of 
his debt to Mr. Lowell from $46,000, (as is admitted, and 
much more as I conjecture,) in 1835, to $25,000, in 1844, by 
applying to it the surplus income of the trust funds in Mr. 
Lowell's hands, was constantly going on, as before shown ; 
but this was disclosed to nobody, interested in the property 
or its income, either by Mr. Boott or by Mr. Lowell. The 
heirs, generally, were profoundly ignorant of the state of the 
trust property. All I knew about it was the position, in 
which it was left in May, 1831, followed by a settlement 
with Lyman & Ralston, in September following, and a set- 
tlement of the guardianship accounts, in 1835 ; to which I 
may add my own observation of the expenditure at the man- 
sion-house in Bowdoin Square, coupled with some occasional 
information from Mr. Lowell. Thence, I gathered, that Mrs. 
Boott, who had removed to England in 1836, received, regu- 
larly, $5000 a year for her own expenditure ; that the debt to 
Mr. Sturgis had been paid ; and that the debt of $25,000 to 
Mr. Lowell remained unpaid. 

In the mean time, from causes not yet to be discussed, it 
came to pass, that, between the time of the first pressure of 
embarrassment in the business of the iron foundry, (preced- 
ing, considerably, the disclosure, in 1830, to Mr. Kirk Boott 
and myself,) and the circumstances, which immediately led 



588 



to the stating of the probate account, Mr. Boott had come to 
be at variance with every one, successively, (though not with 
all at the same time,) of his brothers, sisters, and brothers- 
in-law, living in this country, unless Mr. and Mrs. Wells are 
an exception. This, I shall presently show more distinctly. 
Mrs. Boott had thought proper to withdraw to England, and 
to remain there. Mr. James Boott soon followed his mother, 
and never returned. Mr. Kirk Boott died in 1837. Mr. J. 
Wright Boott and Mr. William Boott, except when the latter 
was at Lowell, lived together at the mansion-house, until a 
circumstance occurred, in 1843, which compelled Mr. William 
Boott to withdraw from it. Mr. J. Wright Boott, after that, 
remained its sole occupant, except that one or more of his 
young nephews of the Wells family lived with him, as his 
guests, and that Mrs, Ralston staid there, for a short time, as 
a visiter from Philadelphia, in the autumn of 1843, and, 
again, in the summer of 1844. 

Whether Mr. Boott had, or had not, become insane, was, 
at this time, a question, which had grown up in the family, 
occasioning much excitement. Mr. Lowell's answer to the 
evidence on this head I shall consider in its place. But, 
from whatever cause, the family was completely broken up 
and dispersed ; and it had become apparent, though no such 
intention had been distinctly announced, that Mrs. Boott 
would never return to reunite her household. Hence, a sale 
of the mansion-house, (a property then grown too valuable to 
keep, if it was no longer to be put to the use intended by 
the testator,) became a subject of consideration; and the 
conclusion was finally arrived at, by all parties interested, 
that the time had come when the house ought to be sold, 
and the proceeds invested, according to the will, for the ben- 
efit of Mrs. Boott, during her life, and of the heirs at her 
decease. 

Those of us, who had no confidence in Mr. J. Wright 
Boott as a suitable trustee, intended, whenever the sale 
should be made, to bring about, if possible, some arrange- 
ment to place the proceeds in security. The executor, it 
will be remembered, was empowered, with Mrs. Boott's 



589 



assent, to make a sale of this estate in certain events. Mr. 
Lowell, as his agent, concluded a bargain, in October, 1843, 
which fell through in consequence of Mr. Boott's refusal to 
ratify it. Another was made, in the spring of 1844, by Mr. 
Boott himself, as Mr. Lowell now affirms ; [L. p. 8.] at any 
rate, Mr. Boott and Mr. Lowell concmTcd in approving it ; and 
this bargain would, no doubt, have been immediately carried 
into effect, if they could have given a good title. But the 
lawyers, whose business it was to look to that for the pur- 
chaser, perceived that, in strictness, neither of the events 
had happened, whence, according to the will, the executor 
was to derive his authority to convey the estate ; and, conse- 
quently, that his deed, though confirmed by Mr. Lowell, as 
the attorney of Mrs. Boott, would not be valid. Deeds from 
all the heirs were deemed necessary. It became, therefore, 
the business of each heir to determine for himself, whether 
he would join in a conveyance of the estate or not, and upon 
what terms. 

This question was proposed to me, for the first and only 
time, in April, 1844, by Mr. Nathaniel I. Bowditch, acting as 
the conveyancer of the parties. I at once declined, as mat- 
ters then stood ; and, in the conversation, which ensued, I 
was led to assign, briefly, my reasons for a course, that 
might, otherwise, have seemed extraordinary and perverse ; 
since I was obliged to admit that I thought the estate ought 
to be sold, and that I did not object to the price, though I 
thought it a good bargain for the purchasers. 

The reasons, which I gave to Mr. Bowditch, were, that, 
unless some other arrangement were made, the proceeds, 
($46,000,) would go into the hands of Mr. Boott, and be 
entirely at his own disposal ; that I knew he contemplated 
investing them, to a considerable extent, in a manner, which 
I thought not only unsafe, but positively contradictory to the 
provisions of the will ; that the only sureties on his probate 
bond were Mrs. Boott and Mr. William Wells, who, in case 
of any considerable loss, would not only be sufferers them- 
selves, but unable to make good the loss of others ; that 
former occurrences led me to feel no confidence in Mr. 



590 



Boott's prudent management of trust property ; that I consid- 
ered him to be, moreover, decidedly insane, on points affect- 
ing his relation to several of the family ; that he had never 
settled his executor's accounts, though twenty-seven years 
had elapsed ; and that he was, in my opinion, for many rea- 
sons, a very unsuitable person to be the family trustee. I 
added, that I should not object to signing the deed, if the 
trust property could be placed in the hands of some responsi- 
ble person, who would be acceptable to all concerned, and 
would give good sureties. The exact language used, I can 
not pretend to recall ; but, I think, I may safely refer to Mr. 
Bowditch for the fact, that this was the whole substance of 
what I said, and that there was no undue excitement, or 
intemperance of expression, in the manner of saying it. 

Such is the origin, and such was the extent, at least, on 
that occasion, of my supposed defamation of Mr. Boott. On 
other occasions, 1 said nothing respecting his conduct as an 
executor, with such exceptions as I shall state. 

I had never, before, spoken of his mismanagement to any 
one out of the family, to the best of my recollection and 
belief, except to Mr. Lowell ; nor had I spoken of it, even in 
confidential communications to members of the family, fur- 
ther than some necessity required, unless a private letter to 
Mr. Wells, written in September, 1842, is to be deemed an 
exception. That letter I shall presently reprint from the 
'' Reply," and shall, then, narrate the circumstances, which 
led to it. 

In 1830 and 1831, the state of affairs, known in full only 
to Mr. Kirk Boott and Mr. Lowell and myself, was, necessa- 
rily, a subject of partial discussion with Messrs. Lyman & 
Ralston, in reference to their claims on the executor, which 
they were then pressing. But there is no pretence that I 
said, or did, any thing to injure Mr. J. Wright Boott, at that 
period. On the contrary, I was acting as a common friend, 
appealed to by both parties, and acting, chiefly, on his 
behalf. 

At the time of the making of the release in 1833, I con- 
versed, no doubt, respecting the executorship, with other 



591 



parties to that instrument ; but only in reference to its sub- 
ject, — the discharge of the executor from all claim for any 
balances, that might be due to them, beyond what they had 
respectively received, reserving their future claims on the 
particular trust funds, not then distributable. So far from 
doing, or saying, any thing to injure Mr. Boott, on that occa- 
sion, I not only joined in that release, but I, in fact, drew up 
the paper, and did all, that I properly could, to induce the 
other heirs to sign it. The position of the trust property, I did 
not think myself at liberty to disclose to any of them, while 
Mr. Kirk Boott thought proper to remain silent ; and, after 
his death, I still felt bound by his example, until a necessity 
arose for positive action. After that release, I believe, I 
never alluded to the subject of the executorship, — unless, 
perhaps, in some private conversation with Mr. Kirk Boott, 
or Mr. Lowell, who knew, at least, as much as I did, — until 
my letter to Mr. Wells of September, 1842. Some time 
after the wrriting of that letter, I conversed, confidentially, 
with Mr. William Boott, on the whole subject of his broth- 
er's conduct, when it had become so extraordinary as, in his 
opinion, and mine, to be incapable of any solution but that 
of insanity. 

With these exceptions, though other matters had occur- 
red, causing great irritation in the family, and occasioning 
much discussion concerning Mr. J. Wright Boott, I had 
observed total silence for thirteen years, on the subject of his 
management of the family property. I preserved that silence 
until I was called upon to decide, whether I would sanction, 
by an act of my own, the placing of $46,000 of the family 
money in his hands, to be invested and managed by him, in 
addition to the property already there ; and, when so called 
upon, I simply assigned to the counsel employed, in general 
terms, and in the manner above stated, my principal reasons 
for declining. 

Mr. William Boott, it was known, also declined. The 
fact that a title could not be given, unfortunately, soon 
became notorious ; but not by my agency. An important 
bargain had been made, which could not be performed. 



592 



Many persons were interested in the purchase. There was a 
dead stop, and the cause of it leaked out from some quarter. 
Mr. Bowditchj necessarily, informed his client, Mr. Darracott, 
who was the agent for the purchasers, of my refusal to sign 
the deed. Mr. Darracott, of course, conversed with Mr. 
Lowell about it. He, also, called upon me, soon after, to 
know what it meant, and urged the impropriety, as it seemed 
to him, of my refusal. The tone of his remarks compelled 
me to state to him, with more warmth, certainly, than I did 
to Mr. Bowditch, the principal causes of my refusal. This 
conversation, and others of like character, with him, at sev- 
eral interviews of his seeking, I shall have occasion to refer 
to, again, with more particularity. 

The existence of some dissension in the family had been, 
previously, known to many persons. My opinion of Mr. J. 
Wright Boott's rnsanity, when these subjects were referred 
to, in a way to put me on the defensive, I repeatedly ex- 
pressed. But the subject of his past mismanagement of the 
family funds, and of the consequent loss they had suffered, 1 
was always careful to avoid, both before and after my con- 
versations with Mr. Bowditch and Mr. Darracott. Whether 
these were not proper and necessary occasions for me to state 
to the party, and his counsel, what I did state, the reader 
will judge. 

I felt, at any rate, that the responsibility of taking care of 
the famil}^ interests devolved peculiarly upon me, in conse- 
quence of my knowledge of the past, and in consequence of 
the death of Mr. Kirk Boott. The reader will remember, 
that, in 1831, that gentleman had thrown upon me the whole 
responsibility of acting for the family, and had bound him- 
self to acknowledge, as his act, whatever deed I might con- 
clude upon. [Ante, p. 280.] A new crisis had now arrived. 
He was gone, and he had left me, by his will, a trustee, 
jointly with Mr. Lowell, for his family. Mr. Lowell was 
acting, on the present occasion, avowedly, as the agent of 
Mr. J. Wright Boott, and, as it seemed to me, without much 
regard to the interests of that trust. Mr. William Boott was 
the only business man remaining in the family, and the only 



593 



brother on this side of the Atlantic. I had informed him of 
the facts known to me, and he concurred in my views. I 
had no doubt, whatever Mr. Lowell's opinion may be, that 
Mi\ Kirk Boott, had he been living, would have concurred in 
them also. Mr. Wells, I knew to be uninformed of matters, 
necessary to be known, in forming a correct judgement on the 
case. Although a gentleman of most estimable and amiable 
qualities, I must respectfully insist, that he was by no means 
a man of business, nor a man likely to take the stand, which, 
in my judgement, circumstances then required. He had de- 
clined doing so upon a former occasion, when I thought his 
position in the family called upon him to take a decided part, 
and would have enabled him, I think, had he so viewed it, to 
have righted somewhat the family affairs, and, perhaps, to 
have prevented much of the mischief, which followed. But, 
as matters stood, he, though not a very active partisan him- 
self, was the apparent and nominal head of a party, consist- 
ing, chiefly, of ladies in the family, who looked on Mr. J. 
Wright Boott as a persecuted man. Circumstances, besides, 
which I shall presently explain, had placed a sort of barrier 
between Mr. Wells and me, and had occasioned a cessation 
of intercourse, though by no means of old regard on my part, 
and, I hope, not on his. I did not look, therefore, for coun- 
sel or co-operation in that quarter, and did not communicate 
to him what I knew he would rather not hear, and perhaps, 
under surrounding influences, would not have greatly heeded. 
Neither Mr. and Mrs. Lyman, nor Mr. and Mrs. Ralston, had 
any interest in the question ; since they, by the settlement 
with Mr. J. W^right Boott, in 1831, had assigned to him all 
their reversionary right in the mansion-house and the trust 
funds.* Dr. Francis Boott and Mr. James Boott, as well as 
Mrs. Boott, were in London. It was in vain to attempt to 
make them understand the whole of such a case by letter, 
especially when there was disagreement among parties here. 
I did not attempt it. Mr. William Boott, in the course of his 

* Mrs. Ealston, afterwards, acquu-ed an interest adverse to that of the other 
heirs, under Mr. J. Wright Boott's will. But this did not exist at the time I 
speak of, and I did not know of it till after Mr. Boott's death. 



594 



correspondence with Dr. Boott, and Mrs. Brooks, by some 
occasional letters, either to Mrs. Boott or to Dr. Boott, did 
transmit certain statements, calculated to inform them, par- 
tially, of the state of affairs. These were counteracted, in a 
degree, by opposing statements from members of the Wells 
family, and from Mrs. Ralston ; but very ineffectually, until 
Mr. Lowell became a correspondent also ; and he, from his 
apparently disinterested position, excellent judgement, and 
supposed friendly regard for the interests of the family, soon 
settled all questions in London, as he had done with most 
persons here, conformably to his own views. 

This subject I must return to. At present, I introduce it, 
thus far, only to show that I was placed in a position, which 
made it necessary for me to take the responsibility, in con- 
junction with Mr. William Boott, of acting in opposition to 
Mr. Lowell, — backed, as he was, by uninformed, and misin- 
formed, portions of the family, — in carrying out such meas- 
ures as my judgement dictated, for the preservation of the 
family property, and by which measures it is to me a great 
satisfaction to believe that I succeeded in preserving it. I was 
called upon, in effect, to protect the interests of some of the 
family against themselves, with the certainty of much tem- 
porary dissatisfaction, but with the certainty, also, that, — if I 
should take a different course, and a great part of the remain- 
ing family property should be lost, in consequence of an ar- 
rangement sanctioned and actively promoted by me, with 
the knowledge I had of Mr. Boott's former management, — 
the same parties would complain of me more loudly, and 
with more reason, when they should come to know the 
whole truth, and to feel its consequences. 

I was particularly led to this view of the subject by a 
knowledge of the fact, that Mr. Boott had obtained his moth- 
er's consent, (that of the heirs, in his then state of mind, he 
did not think worth asking,) to use the proceeds of the sale 
of the mansion-house, to build for himself a house in the 
country, with a hot-house, and garden, adapted to his tastes. 
With his ideas and tendencies on such subjects, it was, and 



595 



is my belief, that a great part of the family property would 
have been found, in a few years, hopelessly buried there. 

I mentioned this intention of Mr. Boott formerly, [B. p. 
94.] and Mr. Lowell, who knows the fact, does not deny it. 
Indeed, it appears, that when the account was settled, or 
about to be settled, in a manner to effect the payment of Mr. 
Lowell's debt, and a transfer of the remaining property to a 
new trustee, (which would, of course, prevent the investment 
proposed by Mr. Boott,) Mr. Lowell held out the idea to Mr. 
Boott that he himself might advance the money, necessary 
to enable Mr. Boott to build this place in the country. I 
refer for this, to the statement of Mr. Lowell's witness, the 
coroner, who says, that Mr. Lowell, (amongst all the other 
things confidentially communicated to a coroner's jury,) 
mentioned, '' that he, [Mr. Lowell.] had advised Mr„ Boott to 
retire into the country, upon a sale of the mansion-house, and 
had offered to advance to him the means of ])uilding himself 
a place." [L. p. 12.] 

This circumstance I never before heard of; but the other 
circumstances, above mentioned, are those, under which I 
declined to execute the deed ; and what I said to Mr. Bow- 
ditch and to Mr. Darracott was, I believe, the whole length 
and breadth of my impeachment of Mr. Boott's credit in his 
trust, at any time before this controversy with Mr. Lowell, 
except to the extent stated, in the confidential family com- 
munications above alluded to, or in private conversations 
with Mr. Lowell himself, (who knew all that I did, and, it 
seems, a good 'deal more,) and like conversations with his 
counsel, and with my own counsel, after the question about 
a change of trustee had arisen. Indeed, the surprise of most 
readers at the statements of my former pamphlet, — notwith- 
standing the previous rumours, so commonly prevalent to 
my disadvantage, and the excitement caused by the manner 
of Mr. Boott's death, and the fact that a litigation had been 
for some time pending concerning the probate of his will, — ■ 
must be a convincing proof to all candid persons, that I had 
not been very industrious in circulating, what Mr. Lowell is 
pleased to call, my defamations of Mr. Boott. 



596 



CHAPTER LVIII. 

PROMPT AGENCY IN PHEPARING FOE AND MAKING UP THE ACCOUNT. 

MR. Lowell's responsibility for its substantial truth. 

I ought, perhaps, here to mention, that, until after the 
death of Mr. Boott, Mr. Lowell and myself were on extremely 
good terms ; and though I soon perceived that we were act- 
ing in opposition, when we approached the question of a 
change of trusteeship, and that he had, for some reason, a 
point to carry, as well as I, I attributed that, at the time, to 
nothing but the ardour of his zeal and friendship for Mr. J. 
Wright Boott, whose cause he had espoused. The point, 
immediately in contest, I must do him the justice to say, he 
was never known to yield ; but he always agreed with me, 
in our private conversations, when there was no point to 
settle, and no by-stander to witness them, that, had the fam- 
ily property been differently managed, it would have been 
much larger than it was. 

A particular proof of some of these conversations, at least, 
now stands in print ; for the letter of Mrs. Brooks to her 
mother, dated December 11, 1844, printed by me, contains 
this passage :— - 

" Mr. Brooks has, this week, had two long conversations with Mr. 
Lowell, who said he agreed entirely with Mr. Brooks in his views^ 
and Mr. Lowell denied ever having said, or thought, that Mr. Boott 
had managed the estate well, or that he considered him a Jit person to 
have the care of the property. Mr. Lowell then went on to say, ' If 
you, Mr. Brooks, or I, or any good man of business, had had the care 
of that estate, what a noble property it would have been ! Mr. Boott 
should have been worth SI 00,000 ; each heir should have had a hand- 
some fortune, and Mrs. Boott, with more money to spend yearly than 
she ever has had, should have laid by $50,000 to have bequeathed 
as she liked ; and that it was a sort of miracle that any thing was 
left.' " [B. App. p. 48.] 

This, it v/ill be remembered, is the letter, which, — in con- 



597 



sequence of Mrs. Brooks's request to her mother that she 
would " write to Mr. Lowell, and ask him as a man of 
honour, if it is not all true," — was sent out from England by 
Mrs. Boott to Mr. Lowell. What answer Mr. Lowell made 
to that appeal, in his communications to Mrs. Boott, I do not 
know. But he received the letter, and neither by any com- 
munication to me, then or since, nor in his pamphlet, purport- 
ing to answer my former remarks, has he ever undertaken to 
demj a syllable of the contents of that letter, although one 
passage in it, alluding to the remarkable coincidence between 
the balance of Mr. Boott's probate account and the amount 
of his debt to Mr. Lowell, excited him, considerably, at the 
time, and brought him to me to complain of the fact that 
Mrs. Brooks should have so written. It is the same passage, 
which he affects to dismiss, in his pamphlet, under the de- 
nomination of a ''choice extract." [L. p. 110.] The " Reply" 
alludes, in one or two other places, to the letter ; but never 
for the purpose of disavowing any thing mentioned in it, as 
done or said by him. So that I have, now, in print, his own 
tacit admission of the truth of my foregoing statement, and I 
hold him so far pinned upon that point. Yet, avoiding all 
notice of these former conversations, the burden of the 
"Reply" is, that Mr. Boott was a ''remarkably good man- 
ager of trust property !" [L. p. 97.] 

But I return to narrative. The moment my conversations 
with Mr. Bowditch and with Mr. Darracott were reported to 
Mr. Lowell, he, manifestly, perceived danger and difficulty, 
which required prompt action. His first effort was to per- 
suade, and even to talk of compelling, Mr. Darracott, as that 
gentleman told me, to accept a deed from Mr. Boott and Mrs. 
Boott alone. Failing in that, he saw, at once, that a change 
of trusteeship was inevitable, and that this would, necessa- 
rily, involve a settlement of an executor's account, or, at 
least, of something that might pass for one. Not a word, be 
it observed, had been said by me, or by any body, about 
accounts at this time. The bargain of sale was in April, 
1844. [L. p. 196.] My conversation with Mr. Bowditch was 
immediately after, when he had first begun to look at the 



598 



title under the will of Mr. Boott, senior, and, from the tenor 
of that instrument, perceived the necessity of deeds of con- 
firmation from the heirs. I had said nothing about requiring 
a settlement of accounts, though I said I could not sign the 
deed, if Mr. Boott was to be the trustee. Mr. William Boott's 
letter to his brother, calling for accounts, was not till June 3, 
1844. [B. App. p. 39.] No such call was made by him be- 
fore that time, nor by me at any time. It is true that Mr. 
William Boott had previously mentioned, in a private letter 
to Dr. Boott of London, dated March 31, 1844, according to 
an extract printed by Mr. Lowell, [L. p. 197.] that he enter- 
tained the idea of obtaining a settlement of accounts through 
the judge of probate. May 1, 1844, it seems, he wrote again, 
to say that this step would be unnecessary, because it was 
found that the heirs must sign a deed of the house, which he 
should not do until Mr. J. Wright Boott should have given 
up the trust. [L. p. 197.] It also appears, by a letter from 
Dr. Boott to Mr. William Boott, dated April 18, 1844, of 
v/hich an extract was printed by me, [B. App. p. 36.] that 
Mrs. Boott, at that date, wrote to Mr. J. Wright Boott, 
"requiring him to settle his accounts." But all this private 
correspondence was, of course, unknown to Mr. Lowell at 
that time. It was equally so to me. Indeed Mrs. Boott's 
letter to Mr. J. Wright Boott, " requiring him to settle his 
accounts," could hardly have been received in this country 
when Mr. Lowell made the first movement, of which I am 
now about to speak. 

That movement was sending out drafts of releases, to be 
executed in London by Mrs. Boott and Dr. Boott, in anticipa- 
tion of the accounts, which Mr. Lowell must, then, have intend- 
ed to prepare, and to get passed in the probate office ; and that 
intention must have been formed in consequence of my con- 
versations with Mr. Bowditch and Mr. Darracott, — nothing 
else, that I am aware of, having occurred here to suggest it. 
I state this as a fact, but the reader will understand that it is 
only my inference, which he will adopt, or not, as he pleases. 
The releases, he will find on inspection, are such as could 
not have been drawn by a foreign laAvyer, unacquainted with 



699 



the domestic particulars they state. They were, manifestly, 
upon their face, drawn up here, in Boston, and they Avere 
executed in London, as their date declares, May 29, 1844. 
[B. App. pp. 37-39.] That is, they were executed, tkere^ a 
few weeks, only, after my conversation with Mr. Bowditch 
here, and several days before Mr. William Boott's call on his 
brother for the accounts. 

Besides, I spoke of this preparing of the releases, formerly, 
as the act of Mr. Lowell, [B. p. 95.] and he does not deny it. 
But I do not speak of it, now, as a thing in itself faulty, — on 
the contrary, it indicates an uncommonly quick perception 
of the nature of the task, which lay before him, and great 
promptitude in preparing for its execution. The task obvi- 
ously was to present a plausible account, which would pro- 
vide for his own debt, cover up the deficiencies of the 
executor, and suggest no superfluous inquiries, while it must 
be put in such form, that Mr. Boott would be likely to adopt 
it. The first preparation for this consisted in getting releases 
from parties, who could not, by possibility, know what the 
account would be, upon which their releases were to operate. 
For my part, I never heard of the releases until long after 
the account was settled ; nor, in fact, until I found them on 
the records of the probate office, when I was preparing my 
former pamphlet ; but, how, when, and why, they were pre- 
pared, has now become plain from all the circumstances. 

Another more remarkable instance of the same commenda- 
ble qualities I may mention here, by the way, in reference to 
a fact once before alluded to. Some two or three years be- 
fore Mr. Lowell found any occasion to use them, that I know 
of, he had contrived to get into his hands, from the parties 
in London, the whole private family correspondence in their 
possession. This is scarcely an inference. For my corre- 
spondence with Mr. Lowell occurred in December, 1846, and 
Mr. Lowell tells us that the family letters, from which he 
makes so many extracts in his pamphlet, had, at that time, 
been in his possession nearly eighteen months ; [L. p. 173.] 
which goes back to the summer of 1845, shortly after Mr. 
Boott's death. By that event, Mr. Lowell, as executor of 



600 



Mr. Boott, became the possessor of all Mr. Boott's papers, 
and of all the account books, if any existed, prior to those of 
Boott & Lowell. The latter were already in his hands as 
the liquidator of the business of that firm. Every vestige, 
that remained, of the accounts of the several firms, of which 
Mr. Boott had been a member, and of all his settlements with 
his partners, and of all his transactions concerning his father's 
estate, were, thus, in the sole custody of Mr. Lowell ; but he 
could not be content till he had got the whole family corre- 
spondence also ; and the confiding family seem to have, 
unhesitatingly, delivered this confidential budget into Mr. 
Lowell's keeping ! We shall presently see what use he 
makes of it. 

Now this promptitude of action in getting the releases , 
needful to effect the settlement of a contemplated account, 
naturally leads us to look for equal promptitude in the pre- 
paring of the account^ which the releases were designed to 
pass ; — and this opens questions of some importance to Mr. 
Lowell. Who made this account of 1844? When and how 
was it made ? And how came Mr. Boott to sign and present 
an account, so essentially defective, so extremely loose and 
general, and claiming, so unjustly and untruly, a cash balance 
of |25,000 as due to himself? 

Mr. Lowell complains, with truth, that, in my former pam- 
phlet, I spoke, as I have done throughout my present re- 
marks, of this account as an account made by him. [L. p. 
30.] I did so, in conformity with his own statement to the 
jury, according to the declaration of Dr. Palmer, [Ante, p. 77.] 
and in conformity with his own statement to me, and also 
in conformity with his several statements to Mr. William 
Boott, and to Mr. Franklin Dexter, at other times, as reported 
to me by those gentlemen. [B. p. 121.] 

I stated further, upon the authority of those gentlemen, 
that Mr. Lowell, said that Mr. J. Wright Boott had refused 
to sign this account ; and, upon the authority of Mr. Dexter, 
that he refused to sign it, as Mr. Lowell said, because it made 
him [Mr. Boott ^) a creditor of the estate ; and upou my own 
authority, I stated, that Mr. Lowell said to me, not only that 



601 



Mr. Boott had so refused and for that reason, but that he 
persisted in his refusal for nearly six months. [B. p. 121.] 
But, while I attributed to Mr. Lowell the drawing up of 
the account, as it stands, and the overcoming of Mr. Boott's 
first reluctance to its adoption, I did not impute to him any 
considerable blame for having framed the account, as it was 
framed, either in form or in substance ; nor even for having 
induced Mr. Boott to adopt it. In my then state of informa- 
tion on the subject, I confined my complaint of Mr. Lowell, 
respecting the account, almost entirely, to the use he had 
made of it. This will appear by the following extracts : — 

" It will, of course, be understood, tliat the foregoing statements, 
concerning the accounts and the mode of their adjustment, are not 
made from any desire to undo what has been done, nor with reference 
to any pecuniary interests involved aiFecting myself. Well knowing, 
substantially, the true state of the case, I freely released, I\Irs. Brooks 
consenting, all our claims on the executor in 1833, and we released 
them over again in 1844. There is no pecuniary interest, therefore, 
in the question. But in the next place, I desire to have it under- 
stood, that I make no great complaint of Mr. Lowell for the manner, 
in which the principal account is stated. He had no materials, from 
which he could easily have made a better one." [B. p. 123.] 

I then went on to state the paucity of materials, Avhich I 
then supposed to exist, and the supposed reasons for draw- 
ing up the account in that form, so as '' to give an appear- 
ance of reality, sufficient for a plausible statement to stand 
on the records of the probate office," and I proceeded as 
follows : — 

"Nor do I think it greatly objectionable, that the acco'.jnt should 
have been (though unnecessarily,) so staled as to present ihe aspect 
of a cash advance, by the executor, of $25,000 beyond his receipts, 
considering that the stock held by Mr. Lowell as a security for the 
money due to him, stood of record, since 1831, as a conveyance by 
Mr. Wright Boott, in the capacity of executor, to Mr. Lowell, acting 
in the capacity of trustee for somebody, and that this form of state- 
ment went to shield his friend and former partner, in whom he felt a 
strong interest, and for whom he was acting in this business, from 
ostensible misconduct in his trust, apparent on the public records. 

" But that of which I do complain, and which I confess myself 
astonished at, knowing as I do what facts were known to Mr. Lowell, 
aside from mere figures, is the use, which he has thought proper to 
make of this account, in vindication of his friend, at the expense of 

76 



602 



myself and others, whom he charges with misconduct, on the basis of 
this same account, as if it were a real exposition of Mr. Wright 
Boott's good management of the estate, and proof of the injustice and 
unreasonableness of those, who thought he had mismanaged it, and 
was unfit for a trustee." [B. p. 124.] 

It never had occurred to me, at the time of the Avriting of 
the foregoing passages, that Mr. Lowell would pretend to 
take the ground, which is taken in his " Reply ;" namely, 
that this account, instead of standing on the release of 1833 
as a transaction, which superseded and extinguished all prior 
accountability, was intended to be, and is, a literal and full 
account of the whole executorship from the beginning, waiv- 
ing the effect of all previous voluntary releases. [L. p. 31.] 
This allegation, coupled with the facts, since discovered, 
concerning the extensive stock transactions of the executor, 
and his use of the estate's funds, during the period of the 
house of Boott & Lowell, and the direct agency of that 
house in some, at least, of those operations, places this whole 
branch of the controversy on a new footing ; and it becomes 
highly material, now, to understand upon what footing, pre- 
cisely, Mr. Lowell really means to rest this part of his case. 

In one place, we are told :— 

" / [Mr. Lowell] made up the accounts from the data, he [Mr. 
'hooit] furnishedr [L. p. 31.] 

In another : — 

" It will also be observed that all that portion of the accounts, 
which involves, hy necessary implication, the profit and loss of either 
of the firms of Kirk Boott ^ Sons, was stated on Mr. Boott's personal 
knowledge and responsibility.'^ [L. p. 36.1 

Elsewhere it is said, in reference to " the partnerships of 
Kirk Boott & Sons," that the '■^ final liquidation of the whole 
business was detailed in the hooks of Boott §• Lowell,''^ and 
that Mr. Boott '' was therefore enabled to render full justice 
to every one but himself^'' [L. p. 59.] 

The same idea is conveyed in another passage, which 
avers : — 



603 



" The residual capital, collected and accounted for hy Booit ^ Low- 
ell^ was the true measure of the sum realized from his father's estate, 
beyond the amount of the trust funds, the real estate, and the specific 
legacies." [L. p. 45.] 

And again, we have this account of the matter : — 

" When Mr. Boott was called upon by his brother William, in 
June, 1844, to settle his accounts at the probate office, he applied to 
me for that portion of them which related to the time when he had 
been my partner^ which I furnished to him. Subsequently, he brought 
me all the papers which he had collected relating to his accounts, that 
I might put them in form for him. This was the whole extent of my 
agency in the matter. I do not know upon what authority Mr. 
Brooks undertakes to attribute to me any further responsibility than 
that of having aided Mr. Boott to the extent above specified. I made 
up the account certainly ; but it was from the materials furnished X^o 
me, and on the principles indicated by Mr. Boott himself." [L. p. 30.] 

It is thus admitted, unequivocally, that Mr. Lowell '-'■ made 
up the account ;" but, it is said, " from the materials fur- 
nished," '' and on the principles indicated, by Mr. Boott 
himself;" and there is a distinct disclaimer of all "personal 
knowledge and responsibility " of Mr. Lowell, concerning 
" all that portion of the accounts, which involves, by neces- 
sary implication, the profit and loss of either of the firms of 
Kirk Boott & Sons ;" and yet, it is said, referring to both of 
those firms, " the final liquidation of the lohole business was 
detailed in the books oi Boott &f Lowell f^ and that Mr. 
Boott ''was therefore enabled to render full justice to every 
one but himself; " and that the residual capital collected by 
Boott &> Lowell, '' was the true tneasure of the sum realized 
from his father's estate, beyond the amount of the trust funds, 
the real estate, and the specific legacies ;" and although 
Mr. Boott, it is also said, '' brought me [Mr. Lowell] all the 
papers," it appears that he, (Mr. Boott,) had first ''applied to 
me, [Mr. Lowell] for that portion of them, [the accounts] 
which related to the tim^e when he had been my partner, — 
which I furnished to hiin.''^ 

Now the reader must understand, from all this, what he 
can. I would carefully avoid the smallest injustice to an 
opponent, whose language I quote. But, according to my un- 



604 

derstanding of it, Mr. Lowell means to say this : — 1. What- 
ever the books of Boott & Lowell contain, relating to the 
subject matter of this account, that much I, [Mr. Lowell] 
extracted from those books, and furnished to Mr. Boott. 
2. Mr. Boott, afterwards, handed to me [Mr. Lowell,] '• all 
the papers, which he had collected relating to his accounts," 
— including, of course, the memoranda, which Mr. Lowell 
had furnished to him. 3. The books of Boott & Lowell 
detailed the final liquidation of the whole business of the 
two preceding firms, and, consequently, showed all that Mr. 
Boott had received from those firms, belonging to his fathefs 
estate, although they did not show all, that he had paid to 
the heirs ; so that, by means of my [Mr. Lowell's] statement 
from the books of Boott & Lowell, Mr. Boott was " enabled 
to render full justice to every one but himself," — the residual 
capital, collected by Boott & Lowell, being '' the true measure 
of the sum realized from his father's estate, beyond the trust 
funds," &c. 4. From these materials, (which Mr. Boott, it 
seems, could make nothing out of, satisfactory to himself,) I 
[Mr. Lowell] drew up the account, in its present form, as a 
full and true account of the whole executorship. 

Am I not right, in this interpretation of the eifect of Mr. 
Lowell's language, in the several passages above collected ? 

If I am, let us look at this account, [L. pp. 38, 39. — B. 
App. pp. 43, 44.] and consider, what could have been the 
papers and materials furnished hy Mr. Boott ^ besides those 
extracts or memoranda, from the books of Boott & Lowell, 
which Mr. Lowell had ^xqy\om^\y furnished to him. 

The account debits the executor with the amount of the 
inventory, and with the foot of the probate account of 1818. 
Probate copies of those papers are the only possible materials 
for those entries. 

On the credit side, all the items of the account, except two, 
consist of specific articles in the inventory, — which were 
only to be delivered over, specifically, to the persons entitled 
to them, — and of probate fees, which are usually endorsed 
upon the copies from the probate office. The " materials," 
then, thus far, were only the usual office copies of former pro- 
bate papers. They contained no new subject of account. 



605 



Next comes the great debit, and the great corresponding 
credit of $274,686 36, for income received on the trust fund, 
and paid over " to, or for account and by order of, the wid- 
ow." Now there is no pretence that Mr. Boott ever took 
receipts from his mother, or had any accounts settled with 
her. Let Mr. Lowell produce one if he can. On the con- 
trary, he does not pretend to deny my former assertion, that 
this item, on the credit side, rests for its voucher, entirely, 
on the general release, obtained from Mrs. Boott before the 
account was made up, and obtained in a form suitable to 
pass whatever allowances the account might claim. There 
was no other paper relative to this credit^ which Mr. Boott 
could have produced. 

On the debit side, how was this large item made up ? Was 
it not a mere computation ? The stocks, composing the 
account of 1818, and the stocks, afterwards bought, and 
treated in the account of 1844 as the executor's, told, very 
nearly, their own story. The books of the firms preceding 
that of Boott & Lowell, it is said, were destroyed. Any oth- 
er accounts, kept by Mr. Boott, are not pretended. If there 
were any, let them come forth. But, except for income on 
the stocks of 1818, received before the existence of the house 
of Boott & Lowell, their books, and Mr. Lowell's own books, 
would show, during the whole period of the account, either 
the income actually received, or the rate of dividend, by 
which it might be estimated ; and the earlier income, from 
1818 to 1822, was, from the nature of the stocks, not diffi- 
cult to approximate, very nearly, as I think I have already 
shown. [Ante, p. 436-439.] I can not believe that there 
was one scrap of material, except the release, furnished by 
Mr. Boott, towards this great item on either side of the 
account. It was all, I suspect, mere estimate and computa- 
tion. If not, let Mr. Lowell produce whatever there is to 
show for it. 

On the credit side, what remains ? One item only, — the 
$90,000, said to have been paid to the heirs. For that, and 
more, as an aggregate result, including settlements of Mr. 
Boott with his different partners, there may have been some 



606 



receipts or other papers, proving more or less of payment. 
And these, I submit to the reader, are all '• the materials," 
which Mr. Boott is likely to have furnished, on which any 
single entry in this account is founded, unless it were title 
deeds and certificates of stock, as evidences of the property, 
admitted to be on hand ; and most of these must have been 
held by Mr. Lowell, the property being under pledge to him. 
If there was any thing else, let Mr. Lowell show it. 

To return, then, to the debit side of the account. Except 
the results of the old probate papers, and the mere computa- 
tion of the aggregate amount of income received, there is not 
an item stated on that side of the account, which did not 
come out of the books of Boott & Lowell, though no one is 
specified as derived from that source, except the large sum of 
$69,389 99, said to have been received by the executor, " in 
liquidation of the outstanding property of Kirk Boott & 
Sons." And the items, coming from those books, are, let it 
be noted, with the credit of $90,000 paid to the heirs, the 
lohole material portion of the account , in which the heirs were 
directly concerned. 

The income on the trust fund was nothing to them, except 
as they were interested to see justice done to their mother. 
The debit of the inventory, and the credits for its contents, 
specifically delivered, were mere matters of form. The 
$116,783 95, drawn from the old probate account of 1818, 
was only re-stating that, which the executor had formerly 
charged himself with. There is no new subject of account 
with the heirs brought in, except the entries derived from 
the hooks of Boott &f Lowell ; and those items of the account, 
which are derived from those books, purport to represent, as 
Mr. Lowell admits, [L. p. 45.] the ivhole estate of Mr. Boott, 
senior, except that portion of it, which had been originally 
invested for the trust fund, according to the probate account 
of 1818, and the specific property, real estate included, named 
in the inventory of that year. In relation to the whole 
essence of this account of 1844, except alleged payments to 
the heirs, Mr. Lowell, it seems, was, virtually, as much an 
accounting party as Mr. Boott. Yet, the " Reply " puts it to 



607 



the reader, as if Mr. Lowell, knowing nothing, himself, of the 
more important matters in this accomit, had merely thrown 
together certain materials furnished to him by Mr. Boott, of 
which certain memoranda of entries, previously found by 
Mr. Lowell in the books of Boott &> Lowell, had constituted 
a small part ! 

The '' Reply" professes entire ignorance, or, at least, not 
sufficient acquaintance to speak with confidence, " of the re- 
sult of the liquidation of the outstanding business of the first 
firm"; [L. p. 27.] and, yet it says, (referring expressly, to 
both the former firms, — " the partnerships of Kirk Boott & 
Sons,") that "the final liquidation of the whole business was 
detailed in the books of Boott & Lowell." [L. p. 59.] ^^All 
that portion of the account, which involves, by necessary 
implication, the profit and loss of either of the firms of Kirk 
Boott & Sons," we are told, '' was stated on Mr. Boott's per- 
sonal knowledge and responsibility ;" [L. p. 36.] and, yet, it 
appears that there is no portion of this account, which does 
involve their profit and loss, by necessary implication or 
otherwise, except that portion of it, which is comprised in 
the entry of the large sum received from Boott & Lowell ,* 
for, all else in the account, representing original capital, is 
only the inventory of real estate and specific chattels, and 
the amount of the particular trust funds, which the will 
directed to be withdrawn from the house of Kirk Boott 6o 
Sons, before its liquidation began, and ivithoiU regard to its 
profit and loss. [See Will and Codicil, B. App. pp. 5-9.] 

Now, Mr. Lowell, possessing the books of Boott & Lowell, 
and being the virtual accounting party for that house, was 
surely bound to have stated, in this account, every thing, 
afiecting the interest of the estate, which those books can 
disclose. Whatever came from the executor to Boott 6& 
Lowell, and whatever the executor did with the estate's 
funds through Boott & Lowell, Mr. Lowell, as a party to 
those transactions, was peculiarly bound to exhibit, in a dis- 
tinct and intelligible form. Further than that, whatever ac- 
count of Mr. Boott, individually, was kept by the house in 
its books, either with the estate or with the heirs, or of Mr. 



608 



Boott's own personal transactions with funds of the estate, 
the duty was, at least, as much upon Mr. Lowell, when he 
undertook to make up the executor's account, as it was upon 
Mr. Boott, to exhibit, truly and faithfully, the items therein 
entered, since he was the copartner of Mr. Boott, and the 
books of the copartnership were in his keeping. And when, 
instead of drawing off the items, he undertakes to state, as 
he does, only general results, he takes upon himself^ (I sub- 
mit to the reader, ) the whole responsibility of the truth and 
completeness of the account^ so far as it is, or might be, de- 
rived from those books, and can not now be allowed to shift 
off that responsibility upon a friend in his grave. 

But, when we come to look at other evidence than the 
account itself, we see, that the two and a half years of Boott 
&> Lowell, comprise the most active portion of Mr. Boott's 
dealings with the stocks, admitted to have formed the original 
trust fund of 1818, and also, with the stocks, finally treated 
as representing, in 1844, the trust fund in part, and, as we 
are told, Mr. Boott's own property, in part, and the property 
of his wards, in part. His two subscriptions to fifty-six 
shares and to forty shares of Merrimack stock, ostensibly for 
himself, but out of which come the seventy-one shares of the 
account of 1844, fall within that period. His purchase and 
sale of Mr. Dehon's estate, ostensibly for himself, leaving the 
stable on hand at $2500, charged to the estate by the ac- 
count of 1844, fall within the same period. So do his sales 
of the old stocks of the trust fund of 1818, to the amount of 
$52,000 and upwards ; and those sales were made, as it turns 
out, either by the executor to Boott ^ Lowell^ or else, if trans- 
ferred to Boott & Lowell, as agents for the executor, the 
sales were made by Mr. Lowell himself while Mr. Boott 
was absent in England. Yet, of all these matters, not one 
word is disclosed in this account, — except the bare fact, that, 
at some time, left to be guessed at, between 1818 and 1844, 
certain gains and certain losses resulted from certain sales 
by the executor of the stocks on hand in 1818 ! 

Why were these omissions ? And what does Mr. Lowell 
mean, by saying that putting the accounts in form for Mr. 



609 



Boott, upon '* materials furnished," and according to '' prin- 
ciples indicated" by Mr. Boott, was the whole extent of his 
agency in the matter ? [L. p. 30.] And what, by the way, 
were " all the documents," which, he says, he offered to 
show to Judge Warren ? [L. p. 35.] 



CHAPTER LIX. 

MR. boott' S UNWILLINGNESS TO ADOPT THE ACCOUNT, DRAWN UP 
BY MR. LOWELL. 

The " Reply" informs us, that Mr. Boott affirmed, " that 
he had paid to each of the heirs more than the $10,000 
charged to them, but that he was determined to bring in an 
account that could not be disputed." [L. p. 31.] Nor is it 
disputed that $90,000, in the whole, (as the account claims,) 
and more, had been paid among the heirs. The whole ques- 
tion is on the other side of the account, — how much had 
been received ? — and it is remarkable, that Mr. Lowell does 
not pretend, that Mr. Boott made any statement to him, 
whatever, on that point. It is merely said, that, — " He, [Mr. 
Boott] never expressed any doubt of being able to show, that 
he had never received from the estate more than he had cred- 
ited in the account." [L. p. 31.] But did any body directly 
ask him ? Mr. Lowell made out the account ,* and all that 
part of it, which relates to the amount received, beyond what 
Mr. Boott had formerly charged himself with, by the account 
of 1818, as derived from the old firm of Kirk Boott & Sons, 
was furnished hy Mr. Lowell out of the hooks of Boott 6f 
Lowell. If he expressed no doubt on this point, why should 
Mr. Boott ? Must not Mr. Boott, himself, have gone for in- 
formation to these same books, if they contain, as Mr. Lowell 

77 



610 



says they do, '' the final liquidation of the whole business" of 
the former firms ? 

We are further told, that when the papers were first brought 
to Mr. Lowell, he asked Mr. Boott, why he did not commence 
his accounts from the date of the discharge ; and the answer 
was : — " No, Mr. Lowell, I am determined to begin from the 
beginning, and show that the estate has not been wasted in 
my hands." [L. p. 31.] Such, then, was the exact tenor of 
the commission from Mr. Boott, upon which Mr. Lowell un- 
dertook to draw up the account. He was to state an account, 
from the beginning, that would show that the estate had not 
been wasted in Mr. Boott's hands. This he accomplishes in 
the manner we have seen, and submits it to Mr. Boott, with- 
out any inquiry, so far as appears, upon a most important 
point ; namely, whether Mr. Boott had received any thing for 
the estate, in the interval of nearly four years, between May, 
1818, when his former probate account was passed, and Jan- 
uary 1, 1822, when the partnership of Boott & Lowell began ? 
According to the account of 1844, the whole remaining 
money, therein included, after that, which had been already 
shown by the account of 1818, came from Boott & Lowell. 
And all, the " Reply" has to say upon this subject, is, that 
Mr. Boott, — not being asked, — " never expressed any doubt " 
that he was charged with all his receipts. " The result," 
according to the " Reply," " was the one exhibited at the 
probate ofiice, showing a balance in his [Mr. Boott's] favor, 
for advances^ of $3700." [L. p. 31.] But the paper showed 
no such thing, to any common observation. What it showed, 
upon its face, was, — '' cash balance, due to the executor ^ 
$25,215 45." 

'' This," says Mr. Lowell, '' did not surprize me." [L..p. 
31.] Of course, not. Why should it ? Did not he make the 
account ? But he adds, " it appeared to be what Mr. Boott ex- 
pected." [L. p. 31.] Indeed ! How did that appear ? Did he 
not refuse to sign it? I assert, on the authority of Mr. Low- 
ell's statement, to me, that, ^' for nearly six months, he posi- 
tively refused to sign that, or any other account, which repre- 
sented himself to he a, creditor of the estate^ [B. p. 121.] 



611 

I assert, further, on the authority of Mr. William Boott, and 
of Mr. Franklin Dexter, that Mr. Lowell made the same 
declaration to each of those gentlemen, except as to the 
length of time, during which the refusal continued, and ex- 
cept that I believe he did not state the reason of the refusal 
to Mr. William Boott, as he did to Mr. Dexter, and to me. 
But what says Mr. Lowell? He says, very truly, that I 
charge him with having induced Mr. Boott, reluctantly, to 
adopt the account, and he then proceeds thus :— 

" Now. so far is this from being true, that Mr. Boott never for one 
moment refused to sign the accounts, or expressed any doubt of his 
being entitled to the balance they exhibited. He did, however, inti- 
mate an intention of refusing to accept it. This occurred at an inter- 
view at Mr. Lorinfs house a few days before the account was pre- 
sented:' [L. pp. 32, 33.] 

He means, of course, a few days before it was presented at 
the probate office ; and a letter from Mr. Charles G. Loring is 
cited, which says : — 

" Mr. Boott expressed his firm conviction, that, if he had charged 
all, that had been expended for the heirs, and could exhibit a detailed 
statement of his appropriations of the property in his hands, a larger 
balance would be found due to him ; but he seemed disposed to relin- 
quish any claim for that exhibited, under the pressure of the circum- 
stances, in which he was placed by his inability to render detailed 
accounts, and the imputations made upon him, of abuse of his trust." 
[L. p. 33.] 

Such was the aspect of the case, as presented to Mr. Loring 
by his clients. No wonder that, upon such a case, Mr. Loring 
should have " designated the course, he [Mr. Boott] pro- 
posed as (Quixotic." [L. p. 33.] Here was an account, 
drawn up by Mr. Lowell, in whom Mr. Loring naturally 
placed the utmost confidence, both as an accurate accountant, 
and as a disinterested friend of all parties, purporting to ex- 
hibit a cash balance of |25,000 due to the executor. And 
here is Mr. Boott, whom Mr. Loring considered to be a per- 
fectly sane man, (though, in this instance, a little " Quixotic,") 
and a gentleman, on whose assertions the utmost confidence 
might be placed, telling him, that, if he had charged all he 
had expended for the heirs, and could exhibit detailed state- 



612 



ments, a larger balance would be found due to him, and yet 
proposing to relinquish^ voluntarily^ (nobody having asked 
or suggested it, or having made any objection whatever to 
the account, — for nobody, but those three persons, had then 
ever seen it,) a clear balance, which is found due to him, 
according to that account, of $25,000 ! 

And for what reasons ? They are two. First, because he 
could not exhibit certain details , which would show a larger 
balance due to him ; and, secondly, because the persons, in 
whose favour the balance shown was to be relinquished, were 
falsely imputing to him an abuse of his trust ! What a mis- 
erable appearance does this make, after what we have seen 
about the reality of afiairs behind this account, and after all 
Mr. Lowell's high flown figures about Mr. Boott's tendering 
the issue, throwing down the gauntlet, defying his assailants 
to the proof, [L. p, 206. J &c., &c., &c. ! Especially, how 
poor does it appear, when we find that all the most important 
period of the account lies within the range of the books of 
Boott & Lowell, and that there was no manner of difiiculty 
in exhibiting the minutest details of that interesting period ! 
I should be sorry, indeed, if I believed, as Mr. Loring does, 
and as Mr. Lowell, also, professes to believe, that Mr. Boott 
was not ijisane, at the time of that conversation, upon all 
topics connected with his administration of the family prop- 
erty, and his accountability to some of the heirs of his father's 
estate. 

We are, also, furnished with a letter from another gentle- 
man, Mr. E. G. Loring, the present Judge of Probate, to the 
effect, that he was informed by Mr. Lowell, that, '^when the 
balance, shown" by this account, "was communicated to 
Mr. Boott, he replied, that he ahoays had known the estate 
was in debt to him, but that he did not wish to stand urging 
demands, as a creditor, against his brothers and sister s.^^ 
[L. p. 34.] Now this, it will be observed, is only another 
statement by Mr. Lowell, coming through Judge Loring. 
That gentleman only repeats what Mr. Lowell told him. 
Yet the account, as now expounded by Mr. Lowell does not 
purport to urge the balance, which it shows, as a demand 



613 



against the brothers and sisters, but merely, as the ''Reply" 
assures us, to reclaim so much of Mr. Boott's own private 
property, which had become mingled with property of the 
estate, in consequence of an agreement with me ! [L. p. 41.] 
I leave it to Mr. Lowell to determine whether Mr. Boott's 
misapprehension on that point, as formerly reported by him- 
self to Judge Loring, tends to prove sanity or insanity. 

But what is it, which Mr. Lowell now means to say is not 
true ?— that Mr. Boott refused to sign the account ? or that 
Mr. Lowell said he so refused ? For these are two different 
questions. If Mr. Lowell means to assert, now, that he, Mr. 
Lowell, did not state, that Mr. Boott had refused to sign the 
account, he places himself in the unfortunate position of con- 
tradicting two gentlemen, besides myself, who positively af- 
firm that he did so state. If Mr William Boott's testimony 
may be suspected of any undue bias from personal feeling, I 
may, at least safely refer to Mr. Franklin Dexter, who has 
not the remotest connexion with this controversy, and never 
had, except that he once called, as a friend, at my request, 
on Mr. Lowell for a purpose, which will be explained in 
its place, and that he afterwards acted, for a short time, as 
my counsel. But this was in 1845 ; and I now exhibit the 
following part of a letter, dated March 15, 1848, the whole 
of which I shall print in another connexion : — 

EXTRACT FROM A LETTER of Mr. DEXTER. 

" Mr. Lowell certainly stated to me, in that interview, that Mr. J. 
W. Boott, when the account made up by Mr. Lowell was first pre- 
sented to him, said, that he would never sign an account that brought 
his brothers and sisters in debt to him. It was not that he would not 
accept the balance, but that he would not sign the account, — and I so 
reported to you." 

Mr. William Boott says, that Mr. Lowell said very nearly 
the same thing to him. I say, he said the same thing to me, 
with a material addition respecting the long continuance of 
the refusal. 

Now if Mr. Lowell means to give a direct contradiction to 
all this, so be it. If not. why he then only places himself in 



614 



the very awkward predicament of asserting, now, a thing not 
to be true, which he himself, in at least three several conversa- 
tions, with three several gentlemen, had before asserted was 
true. I leave him the choice. 

But, when Mr. Charles G. Loring is cited as a witness, that 
Mr. Boott only intimated a willingness to relinquish the bal- 
ance, it will be perceived that the time referred to by Mr. 
Loring, and the time referred to by Mr. Lowell, in his state- 
ments to Mr. Dexter, to Mr. William Boott, and to me, are 
not the same. Mr. Dexter says, the occasion mentioned by 
Mr. Lowell, when Mr. Boott refused to sign the account, was, 
''when the account, made up by Mr. Lowell, was first pre- 
sented to him.^^ On the other hand, the occasion, spoken of 
by Mr. Loring, was an interview with Mr. Boott and Mr. 
Lowell, when they called upon him, together, to consult him 
respecting the account. Mr. Lowell had presented the ac- 
count to Mr. Boott before that time, of course. And, Mr. 
Lowell says, this interview with Mr. Loring was only '' a 
few days before the accounts were presented," meaning in 
the probate court. [L. p. 33.] 

Now the assertion, which I make upon my own credit, is, 
that Mr. Lowell told me, that Mr. Boott not only refused to 
sign the account, but persisted in refusing for nearl'i/ six 
mofiths. This Mr. Lowell wishes the reader to infer must be 
a mistake of mine, because Mr. C. G. Loring writes, in an- 
swer to Mr. William Boott's letter of November 7, 1844, (the 
account is dated November 18,) " The accounts of your 
brother have 7iot yet been made up, though, I believe the 
materials are, now, all at hand.''^ [L. p. 32.] But what did 
Mr. Loring know of these facts ? What could his statement 
be more than a repetition of that, which Mr. Lowell may 
have given him to understand ? While Mr. Boott was refus- 
ing to adopt the proposed draft of an account, Mr. Lowell, 
when inquired of, might, very naturally, have said that he 
was not quite ready, yet, to present an account, but that the 
materials for it were all at hand ; and, upon that information, 
Mr. Loring would, naturally, have written as he did. As to 
the " materials," we have seen that they were always at 



615 



hand. They lay in the old probate papers, a few receipts 
from some of the heirs, the books of Boott & Lowell, Mr. 
Lowell's own books, and the releases obtained from London, 
which, being dated May 29, must have been received here 
by the steamer about the middle of June. 

In this connexion, I pray the reader to note, that, although 
Mr. Lowell cites this letter of Mr. Loring, and leaves the 
reader to his inference, he does not undertake, directly, to 
deny his having stated to me, as I affirmed in my former 
pamphlet, that Mr. Boott refused for nearly six months to 
sign the account. On the contrary, he only asks, — " Did 
I say, then, that he refused to sign the accounts, because they 
were untrue 1 Or is this the poison, to which an incident, 
so honorable to Mr. Boott, is turned by passing through the 
alembic of Mr. Brooks's mind ?" [L. p. 34.] 

Certainly, Mr. Lowell did not say any such thing as that 
Mr. Boott refused to sign them because they were untrue ; — 
he only stated the fact, that Mr. Boott did refuse to sign 
them, and that he persisted in so refusing for nearly six 
months. Mr. Lowell was, at that time, declaiming to me, 
with great warmth and earnestness, upon the disinterested- 
ness of Mr. Boott's character and conduct, for which this 
fact was used as an argument, — and so I formerly reported 
Mr. Lowell. [B. p. 121.] The statement was made to 
prove one thing. It may, nevertheless, prove another ; — 
and, all I supposed it to prove, was the truth of the fact, 
which Mr. Lowell stated, to satisfy me of the disinterested- 
ness of Mr. Boott. 

I supposed so, at the time of writing my pamphlet, not 
only because Mr. Lowell had so said, but because other facts 
confirmed it. I had then found that Mr. Lowell, as early as 
May, 1844, was getting releases^ preparatory to an account. 
There was no want of promptitude on his part, at that stage 
of the business. Early in June, before the releases of May 
29 could have arrived, Mr. William Boott wrote to his broth- 
er, requesting, for the first time, an account of the executor- 
ship, and was immediately answered, through Mr. Charles G, 
Loring, as follows : — 



616 

LETTEK— C. G. LOEING to W. BOOTT. 

" 39 Court Street, 5th June, 1844. 
To W. BooTT, Esq. 

Dear Sir, — Mr. John W. Boott has placed in my hands your 
note to him of 3d instant, with a request that I would reply to it ; and 
I have the pleasure to say, that Mr. Boott is making arrangements 
for rendering, at the probate office, the returns to which you refer, 
and that no avoidable delay will take place. Yours, respectfully, 

C. G. LORING." 

Now the '' arrangements," (except the releases from Lon- 
don,) for making up and rendering such an account as this 
is, — IF MR. BOOTT AGREED TO IT, — did uot require a week. 
How is it possible, that it should have occupied Mr. Boott 
and Mr. Lowell, from the fifth of June till the eighteenth of 
the following November ? 

Another curious incident happens to fall within this period. 
Mr. Boott executed a will on the ninth of September ; and 
that will, after some bequests of pictures, guns, plants and 
other specific articles, of which ''all my plants and gar- 
dening apparatus and botanical books " were given to Mr. 
Lowell, proceeds thus : — 

" I further give, devise and bequeath to John A. Lowell, Esq., his 
heirs, executors, or assigns for ever, all my interest in reversion in 
and of certain real and personal property, held in trust under the pro- 
visions of the will of my late father, and all the interest in reversion 
in certain real and personal property, held in trust under the provis- 
ions of the will of my late father, which ivas conveyed to me by Will- 
iam Lyman and Mary his wife, and* all the interest in reversion in 
certain real and personal property held in trust under the provisions 
of the will of my late father, which was conveyed to me by Robert 
Ralston and Ann, his wife, in trust ; first, to pay and discharge a 
debt of twenty -five thousand dollars, which I owe to him f [B. App. 
pp. 41, 42.] 

Now, if Mr. Boott considered himself, at that time, entitled, 
in his own right, to $25,000 of manufacturing stock, — as he 
was according to Mr. Lowell's present exposition of the 
account, — or if Mr. Boott knew that his father's estate owed 
him even more than the balance of the account in question, — 
as he did according to the statement of the interview at 



617 



Mr. Charles G. Loring's, — how did it happen, that, only two 
months before the account was filed, he should have made a 
will, the first object of which appears to have been to secure 
the payment of his debt to Mr. Lowell, out of so distant a 
source as these reversions ? 

Perhaps, it may be said, this proves that the account could 
not then have been made up. But, will Mr. Lowell say, that, 
until the account was made up, Mr. Boott, being a sane man, 
possessed of '' a most accurate memory and a clear perception 
of his own rights and obligations to others," [L. p. 30.] did 
not know, or remember, so prominent a fact as this, in his 
own private affairs ? Could he be ignorant, if it were a fact, 
that a balance of $25,000, or more, was standing to his cred- 
it, in his accounts with his father's estate ; and that he was 
himself the true owner of that amount of property, invested 
in excellent manufacturing stock, though it stood covered, 
by accident, under the name of J. Wright Boott, executor ? 
Did he not know that he had a right to apply this, immedi- 
ately, to the payment of Mr. Lowell ? 

What, then, was the cause of the making of such a will ? 
Why, according to Mr. Lowell, " the reason was probably 
this" :— 

" It had come to his [Mr. Boott's] knowledge, that Mr. Brooks had 
so far forgotten himself as puhlicly to assert, that I had no legal claim 
to that debt, on the ground of the form in which it stood secured, — a 
form existing solely in virtue of his own interposition, in May, 1831." 
[L. p. 204.] 

That, which Mr. Lowell considers my public assertion, he 
goes on to show was a private letter from Mrs. Brooks to 
her brother, Dr. Francis Boott, dated July 15, 1841, in which 

she says : — 

'• The debt to Mr. Lowell is, or was, three weeks ago, still unpaid, 
aid fifty shares of the Merrimack Company are still pledged to Mr. 
Lowell as security, while, in fact, Mr. Lowell can not legally recover 
one cent. Edward has never till lately mentioned these circumstan- 
ces to any one, and had no disposition to make any trouble on that 
account, \1 the rest of the heirs were satisfied." [L. p. 204.] 

What evidence there is of public assertion in this, I am 



618 



unable to see. Ii was a confidential communication to one 
of the family, who had a right and interest to know it, and 
refers to no other than like confidential communications 
made by me here. Nor do I understand why Mr. Lowell 
should speak of the objection to the legality of his claim as 
depending upon the form, in which it was secured. The 
ground of objection was, that the debt was Mr. Boott's, and 
the shares pledged for it the estate's ; and that Mr. Lowell 
knew this, when he last took the security, if not when he 
first made the loan. Is that 3. form 7 

However, it seems that Mr. James Boott, — with a want of 
discretion, which, I am very confident, he would never have 
been guilty of, but for Mr. Lowell's assurances to all parties 
in London, that Mr. J. Wright Boott was perfectly sane, — 
sent this letter out to him ; and, Mr. Boott, thereupon, ex- 
pressed to Mr. Lowell " his indignation, at what he was 
pleased to designate as the unparalleled baseness of these 
intimations." [L. p. 205.] 

This language of a man entirely deranged, at that time, on 
the subject of his family relations, as the reader will see, 
when I lay before him the evidence in that part of the case, 
Mr. Lowell is but too happy to adopt, while he attributes 
the making of the will to this just indignation of Mr. Boott. 
But, suppose Mr. Lowell right in that view, what is it to our 
present purpose ? The account does not purport, upon its 
face, to involve, in the smallest degree, the question, whether 
Mr. Lowell had a legal lien on those stocks or not. It asserts 
no such lien, but the reverse, and proceeds upon the ground, 
as Mr. Lowell assures us, [L. p. 4L] that an interest of 
$25,000 in them was Mr. Booths private property. The 
^^ Reply " insists, — not only that such was the fact, but, — that 
Mr. Boott was well warranted, for that reason, in appropriat- 
ing, for years, the income from one sixth of the stocks to the 
payment of his own debts ; [L. p. 92.] and, by the terms of 
the settlement agreed on, the estate is made in effect, to buy 
out that interest of Mr. Boott, and to pay for it, as a reality, 
with the proceeds of the mansion-house. [Ante, p. 160.] 



619 



I repeat my question, then : — How came Mr. Boott to pro- 
vide for his debt to Mr. Lowell out of a mere distant expect- 
ancy in reversion, if he really had such a present interest in 
these stocks as the '' Reply " now asserts, or had a claim, 
which he himself recognized, of $25,000, presently due to 
him from the estate, as the account pretends ? 

The inference, I venture to draw, is, that what Mr. Lowelj 
formerly stated was true, and that what he now states is not 
true. I infer, in conformity with his statement to me, and 
in conformity, also, with his several statements to Mr. Will- 
iam Boott and to Mr. Dexter, that Mr. J. Wright Boott re- 
fused to admit any such right, interest, or claitn, as Mr. Low- 
ell's proposed account had set up for him ; and, fearing also, 
in consequence of the letter above mentioned, sent to him 
by Mr. James Boott, that Mr. Lowell might not be able to 
maintain his asserted lien upon the stocks, and that the 
heirs might not assent to the payment of his private debt 
out of the estate'' s property, he resorted, probably under legal 
advice, to the mode pointed out in this will to secure Mr. 
Lowell's eventual payment ; at any rate, by making Mr. 
Lowell the legatee, in trust for that declared purpose, of his 
reversionary interests to accrue at the decease of Mrs. Boott ; 
and, he did so, merely because he well kneic that he had 
nothing else, besides these reverdons, adequate to pay, or 
secure, so large a debt. 

By what arguments, Mr. J. Wright Boott was finally 
brought round to adopt the account as it stood, we shall, 
probably, never know. But, that he refused, at first, to do 
so, can not be doubted, if either myself, or Mr. William 
Boott, or Mr. Franklin Dexter, is believed, — provided, al- 
ways, that Mr. Lowell formerly spoke truth to us. And) 
under the same proviso, if I am believed, Mr. Boott persisted 
in that refusal for nearly six months. My inference, there- 
fore, is, that the account was, in fact, prepared by Mr. Low- 
ell, substantially as it now is, in May or June, 1844 ; and, 
that it was not presented in the probate court, nor submit- 
ted to Mr. Loring, until November, only because Mr. Boott 



620 



would not consent to adopt it. And in my belief, as for- 
merly stated, he 7iever would have consented to sign that 
account, had he. in truth, been, as Mr. Lowell argues, in a 
state of perfect sanity. 

Another reason for believing that the account was made up 
and presented to Mr. Boott in May or June, — notwithstand- 
ing Mr. Loring's belief that it was not made up on the sev- 
enth of November, though "the materials" were then "all 
at hand," — is the following statement of Mr. Lowell, made 
soon after the fifth of June, as set forth in my former pam- 
phlet, and not denied in the " Reply :" — 

" But soon after Mr. William Boott's note [of June 5,] had been 
sent, he was told by Mr. Lowell, that Mr. Wright Boott was previ- 
ously preparing the accounts, in consequence of a suggestion from 
himself, that the state of feeling in the family would make it neces- 
sary for him to settle them." [B. p. 95.] 

Now, we have already seen, that Mr. J. Wright Boott pre- 
pared no account, except through Mr. Lowell's agency. 
The inference, therefore, from the foregoing statement, is, 
that Mr Loiuell had been ^'previously preparing the ac- 
counts,''^ and that Mr Boott was, in truth, only considering 
Avhether he would or would not adopt them. 

The account was, however, signed, and presented at the 
probate office, five or six months later, namely, at or soon 
after its date, [November 18,] and Mr. Lowell, as the agent 
of Mr. Boott, was thereupon referred by me to Judge 
Warren, as counsel for Mrs. Brooks, and for myself as an 
heir in her right, and for Mr. William Boott. The negotia- 
tion and compromise followed, which are described in the 
letter of Judge Warren already printed, — [Ante. p. 139.] a 
compromise, whereby all objections on our part to the ac- 
count were waived, without proof or inquiry respecting its 
contents, deeds conveying the mansion-house were executed, 
and releases made of all our claims on Mr. Boott, he resign- 
ing his trust into the hands of Mr. C. G. Loring, and passing 
over to him all the property left, after taking out from the 
proceeds of the mansion-house, the alleged cash balance of 
the account. 



621 



This brings me to the proper point for considering Mr. 
Lowell's explanation of another ground of complaint, I have 
against him; relative to the accoimt, which is, that, in order 
to facilitate the passage of the account, he made an iinivar- 
ranted use of my name, by signing it for me, without my 
knowledge, to a formal release of Mr. J. Wright Boott, in 
wy capacity of trustee, jointly with Mr. Low^ell, under the 
will of the late Mr. Kirk Boott. 



CHAPTER LX. 



Pass an account. 



To make this matter perfectly clear, the reader must at- 
tend to dates, as well as to the course of events. 

The account is dated November 18, 1844. After exam- 
ining it, 1 drew up a paper, in behalf of iMr. William Boott, 
Mrs. Brooks, and myself, stating our grounds of objection to 
it, so far as Ave were then informed. That paper was in the 
form of a petition to the Judge of Probate. It was not signed 
by any body, but, as a draft, was submitted by me to Judge 
Warren, November 24. 1844, for his advice respecting it, and 
respecting the best course of proceeding to effect my declar- 
ed object, which was, simply, to place whatever was left of 
the property in charge of a safe trustee with proper sure- 
ties. So Judge Warren states. [Ante. p. 139.] 

Negotiations thereupon ensued between him and Mr. C. 
G. Loring, as counsel, and Mr. Lowell, as the friend and ad- 



622 



viser of Mr. Boott. Some conferences, and some corre- 
spondence, between Mr. Lowell and myself, also occurred ; 
and the result of the whole was the agreement of com- 
promise heretofore mentioned. 

As my present subject of complaint is a grave one, I will 
now extract my former account of it, at length ; — 

"I have already mentioned, that a part of the agreement, under 
which Mr. Wright Boott's account was passed, without question, in 
the Probate Court, was, that Mr. William Boott, Mrs. Brooks, and 
myself, should enter into a general release of whatsoever claims we 
might respectively have on him, as executor or trustee. With that 
view a paper was prepared by counsel, dated December 9, 1844, 
whereby ' We, the parties executing this instrument, heirs at law, 
and representing heirs at law^ of Kirk Boott, late of Boston,' &c., ' in 
consideration of one dollar,^ &c., ' remise, release, and discharge him, 
the said John W. Boott, his heirs,' &c., 'from all claims and de- 
mands, of whatsoever name and description, which we, or either of 
us, ever had, now have, or may hereafter have, against him, the said 
John W. Boott, as executor of the last will and testament of the said 
Kirk Boott, or as trustee under any of the provisions of said will.' 
This paper, it will be seen by the Appendix, (No. 30,) purports to 
have been signed, sealed, and delivered, in the presence of Hugh 
Mathews, first by myself and wife, then by Mrs. Wells, Mr. William 
Boott, and Mr. Wells, and lastly by ' J. A. Lowell, for himself and 
Edward Brooks, trustees under the will of Kirk Boott ' — meaning 
the late Mr. Kirk Boott, of Lowell, for whose family Mr. Lowell and 
myself were joint trustees. 

" Now my agreement, in this matter, extended no farther than to the 
release of any personal claims of Mrs. Brooks and myself. I posi- 
tively refused to be instrumental, as trustee for others, in releasing, 
for a nominal consideration, any claims which might justly belong to 
them, preferring, if that were insisted on, to resign my trust, and 
leave the settlement of such a question to the discretion of my suc- 
cessor, of which Mr. Lowell had distinct notice. 

" The circumstances attending the execution of the paper in ques- 
tion, so far as known to me, were these. It was brought to me about 
the time of its date, and before it had been signed by any body. It 
was thereupon executed by myself and Mrs. Brooks at my own house. 
Hugh Mathews was, at that time, a servant in my family, and was 
called in to witness our signatures, which he did. He signed his 
name as a witness, in the proper place, but the precaution of specify- 
ing whose particular signatures he witnessed was neglected. The 
paper then passed out of my hands, and I never saw it afterwards. 
At what times, and in whose presence, it was signed by the other 
parties, I am not informed — certainly not in the presence of Hugh 
Mathev/s. I delivered it, signed by myself and wife only, and wit- 
nessed by said Mathews, to jMr. William Boott, who probably signed 



623 



it afterwards, without any witness, and delivered it either to Mr, Low- 
ell, or to one of the counsel in the case. Mr. and Mrs. Wells were 
at Cambridge. Tliey were never called upon by me, nor, as I am 
informed, by Mr. William Boott ; and Hugh JMathews had nothing 
farther to do with the matter. Mr. Lowell, no doubt, obtained their 
signatures, and afterwards signed the paper himself, in the form above 
stated. 

" I have also mentioned above, that it was part of the agreement, 
that confirmatory deeds of the mansion house, satisfactory to Mr. 
Bowditch, as counsel for the purchaser, were to be executed. Accord- 
ingly, a few days after the paper above-mentioned had been returned 
to Mr. Lowell, a draft of a deed of the mansion house to Mr. Wilham 
Lawrence, intended to be signed by Mr. and Mrs. Wells, myself and 
wife, and Mr. William Boott, was sent or delivered to me by Mr. 
Lowell. That deed was already executed, I believe, by Mr. and Mrs. 
Wells. At any rate, it appears by the cei'lificates of acknowledgment, 
that it was executed by all the parties above-named, on the 1 6th of 
December ; — by Mr. and Mrs. Wells, in the presence of Mr. Lowell, 
who witnessed their signatures; and on the same day, by Mr. Will- 
iam Boott, Mrs. Brooks and myself, in the presence of Mr. P. C. 
Brooks, who witnessed our signatures. 

"On the following morning, December 17, I returned that deed, so 
executed, to Mr. Lowell, with the following letter, intended to prevent 
any possible misapprehension of my intentions, already verbally made 
known to him, not to release any claims in my capacity of trustee. 

[Here followed the letter, which I omit in this quotation, as it will be found, in 
my text, at page 652.] 

" This letter, it will be observed, was a distinct notice to Mr. Low- 
ell, of the fact Avhich Judge Warren states in his letter to me, that the 
assent to the passing of the account exhibited was, on my part, by 
way of compromise merely, and not because I believed, or intended 
to admit, the balance claimed, to be a balance justly due. And yet I 
was not at that time aware, that the account presented had been made 
up hy Mr. Lovjcll himself, and that Mr. Wright Boott had, for a long 
time, positively rejused to adopt it ; which fact I subsequently learnt, 
as above stated. 

" It was also distinct notice that I could not, and should not, consent 
to be a party to any such waiver of claim, in my capacity of trustee, 
and thai my intention then was immediately to resign my trust ; 
which intention I was afterwards induced to alter, as will presently 
appear. 

" It will also be noticed, that a variance between myself and some 
of the cestui que trusts, is alluded to. That variance consisted only 
in a difference of views as to the grounds, on which I had proceeded, 
in bringing about the arrangement, by which the property in Mr. 
Wright Boott's hands v/as to be transferred to a new trustee. Mrs. 
K. Boott, it will presently be seen, had sided against me in the mat- 
ter, but with no information of the facts, material for a correct judg- 



624 



ment, except such as was derived from Mr. Lowell. What that in- 
formation was, will presently appear. The fact was not known to me 
at the time of the writing of this letter. 

" Finally, it is apparent, that I had no idea, at the time of the 
writing of the letter, that any release of the claims of Mr. K. Boott's 
family had been made, or attempted, by any body. 

" Soon after the sending of that letter, and on the same day, I had 
an interview with Mr. Lowell, at which he presented a draft of a 
deed, prepared for himself and myself to sign, as trustees. A short 
conversation then occurred on the subject of my letter. I repeated 
my determination not to sign any paper, releasing claims in behalf of 
Mrs. K. Boott, and her family ; to which Mr. Lowell replied that it 
would not be necessary — meaning, as I understood, that no such re- 
lease was demanded ; and, upon examining the deed, which I was re- 
quested to sign, I found it to be a simple quit-claim, to Mr. William 
Lawrence, of any right or title we might hold, as trustees, in the 
mansion-house estate, without any release, express or implied, of 
claims on the executor. I saw no objection to executing tJiat, as the 
sale was an advantageous one, and the proceeds, according to the ar- 
rangement made, were to pass into the hands of a new trustee, who 
was entirely satisfactory to me. Accordingly, this deed was executed 
by Mr. Lowell and myself jointly, on the 17th of December, (as ap- 
pears by the certificate of acknowledgement,) in the presence of two 
witnesses. Understanding, thus, from Mr. Lowell, that I was not ex- 
pected, as trustee, to join in any release of claims on the executor, 
and finding that the deed, which Mr. Lowell had spoken of, contained 
nothing of the sort, I was induced, on reflection, to alter my deter- 
mination of resigning the trust, considering that it was a personal con- 
fidence reposed in me by a friend, for the benefit of his family, which 
I ought not to disappoint, or surrender, from light considerations ; 
and 1 was, besides, led to believe, that Mr. Lowell himself was rather 
desirous 1 should not resign. I accordingly gave him notice, soon 
after, that he need not trouble himself to prepare the account of our 
joint trusteeship, as requested, since I did not intend, at present, to 
resign. 

I heard no more from Mr. Lowell, on the subject of releasing 
claims. He never intimated to me that he had executed, or intended 
to execute, any such release ; still less that my name had been, 
or was to be, used in any way for such a purpose. Judge, then, 
my surprise, when, upon seeing an attested copy from the probate 
records, in July, 1847, of the general release of December 9, 1844, 
which I had signed on my individual account only, and had refused to 
sign as trustee, I discovered, for the first time, that Mr. Lowell had 
actually signed that paper, and not for himself alone, as one of the 
trustees, but expressly "■ for himself and Edward Brooks^ trustees un- 
der the will of Kirk Boott ;" and that this signature, as well as the 
signatures of Mr. and Mrs. Wells, and Mr. William Boott, stood, ap- 
parently, witnessed by my own servant, Hugh Mathews, (who had 
witnessed the signatures of Mrs. Brooks and myself alone,) as if it 
were all one act, done at one time, and in the presence of one witness, 



625 



and of course Avith my full knowledge imd assent. The effect of such 
a signature, under such circumstances, I leave for others to settle — ^ 
noting, bv the way, that it appears to have been unaccompanied by 
a seal. At least it appears by the record, (the original paper having 
been withdrawn from the probate office, I have not been able to see 
that,) that six persons had signed the release, but that five seals only 
are affixed. But whatever the effect may be, it seems that Mr. 
Lowell, intended to release those claims, and assumed to act in my 
hehalf, and to use wy name as assenting to the act, not only without 
my authority, but without my knowledge, and notwithstanding I had 
positively refused to be implicated as a trustee, in any such voluntary 
release of the rights of others, and had given him distinct notice of 
that determination. Immediately upon the discovery of this assump- 
tion, I addressed to Mr. Lowell the note of July 8, 1847, (App. No. 
56,) calling for explanation, to which he has not thought proper to 
return any answer." [B. pp. 125 to 129.] 

The answer comes in the " Reply," and it is proper that 
the reader should see that, also, at length. 

" I have said enough, perhaps too much, of that part of the pam- 
phlet that is personal to myself. It is so apparent, on the face of it, 
that the issues with me are not the true ones, but are mere pretexts, 
for calling in the public, as arbiters in Mr. Brooks's quarrel with Mr. 
Boott, that it would, perhaps, be wise to confine myself to the latter. 
There is, however, one other subject of complaint preferred against 
me of so extraordinary a character, as to deserve a passing notice. I 
refer to the alleged use of Mr. Brooks's name in the signature of a 
release, on behalf of a trust held by him and myself jointly, under 
the will of the late Kirk Boott, of Lowell. The facts are briefly 
these : — 

" When Judge Warren brought to me a proposition from Messrs. 
Brooks and William Boott, which was rejected, he had taken the pre- 
caution of providing himself with a release, duly executed by them, 
of all demands on Mr. Boott as executor and trustee, to be handed to 
me in case the offer were accepted. Although this contingency had 
not happened, he yet left the paper with me, but I was not to use it 
without his previous authority. 

" On a subsequent day, I accidentally met Mr. Brooks and had a 
conversation with him, which led to the final settlement. He said, that 
if I would write him a letter embodying the substance of what I had 
said to him, he thought they would agree to a settlement on that basis. 
I did so in a letter dated December 10, 1844, of which the opening- 
sentence was as follows : — 

'Boston, December 10, 1844. 

< Edward Brooks, Esq. 

' Dear Sir, — I do not know why I should be worrying myself 
about other people's affairs ; but the kindness that I experienced in 



626 



early life from Mr. and Mrs. Boott has endeared to me all of the 
name, and I would fain do something to alleviate the dissensions ex- 
isting among their children.' 

" I then proceeded to detail the plan for the future management 
of the trust fund, which had formed the subject of our conversation in 
the morning. The next day I received from Mr. Brooks the follow- 
ing reply :— 

[I omit the letter here, as it -will be found at page 637.] 

*' Not one word, it will be observed, about any reluctance to consent 
to this arrangement as joint trustee with me under the will of Mr. 
Kirk Boott. The letter is a full and cordial assent to the proposed 
arrangement, without reservation. 

" I immediately showed this letter to Judge Warren, and procured 
his consent to make use of the release he had left with me, which I 
sent to Cambridge, to be executed by Mr. and Mrs. Wells, and also 
executed myself, in behalf of the trust under the will of Kirk Boott, 
and in the usual form of such signature. This I never doubted that 
I was fully authorized to do by Mr. Brooks's note, above cited. On 
the following probate day, Monday, December 16, 1844, (the dates 
are here important,) this paper was exhibited to the judge of probate, 
in evidence that the opposition to the passage of the accounts, for- 
merly notified to him, was withdrawn, and the accounts were accord- 
ingly on that day passed. Mr. Boott, the next week, when he pre- 
sented his third account, which was one of mere form, left all his 
discharges for record. 

" Now Mr. Brooks's complaint is, that I used his name, not only 
without any authority from him, but with express notice of his dissent, 
(p. 125.) 

" ' What is to be said,' says Mr. Brooks, in another place, (p. 
172,) ' of his assuming in my name, as well as his own, to execute a 
release of our joint claim on the executor as trustees for the family 
of Mr. Kirk Boott, without authority from me, and without my 
knowledge, and after I had positively declined being in any way in- 
strumental in releasing any claims which I held as a trustee for 
others.' 

" To show how eagerly, and how blindly, Mr. Brooks grasps at any 
excuse for throwing blame upon me, I have only to call attention to 
the fact, that the letter from him to me, published in his pamphlet 
(p. 126,) as evidence that he had notified to me his dissent, is dated 
December 17, 1844, that is to say, the day after the account had been 
passed at the probate office ! 

" He says, himself, (p. 165.) that it is placed beyond doubt, that the 
account was passed and allowed ' because no one objected, and be- 
cause releases were filed from all parties interested ; ' and yet he 
now pretends, that his letter of December 17th was a seasonable 
notice not to sign on his behalf a release, which was exhibited at the 



627 



probate court, signed bj all the parties interested, on the 16th ! This 
contempt for chronology is, as 1 have already had occasion to show, 
characteristic of Mr. Brooks's mind. 

" This is not alL His letter to me, of December 17th, had no 
reference whatever to any release^ but to a deed of the estate in 
Bowdoin Square, which required our joint signature ; which signa- 
ture Mr. Brooks, in that letter, very capriciously, as it seemed to me, 
refused on his part. I immediately went to his office and persuaded 
him to sign it. Mr. Brooks says (p. 127), that in that conversation, 
he repeated his * determination not to sign any paper, releasing claims 
in behalf of Mrs. K. Boott, and her family ; to which Mr. Lowell 
vepWed that it would not be necessary;' emphasizing these words to 
intimate, I suppose, some deception on my part, — whereas, if I had 
made any such remark, it Avould have been the most natural one in 
the world, as the account had been passed the day before ! I will not 
dwell on the absurdity of a trustee allowing accounts, that he believes 
to be fictitious, to be passed, no one appearing to object to them, and 
the next day refusing, on the plea of conscience, to sign merely pt^o 
forma discharges." ["L. pp. 190 to 193.] 

This answer, I now propose to examine, and to state, in 
connexion with it, some fmther facts, and to exhibit some 
additional evidence, in order that the reader may see which 
party is, in this instance, guilty of a '^ contempt for chro- 
nology," and of such other established land-marks of truth 
as the case may involve. I shall leave it to the reader to 
affix what epithet he pleases to the act of signing another 
man's name, without authority, to a legal instrument, and 
using it to aid in the passing of an account. But that Mr. 
Lowell did that act, and that his reply to the charge consists 
of nothing but evasion and falsehood, I intend to place 
beyond controversy. 

I call attention, first, to the following sentence : — 

" When Judge Warren brought to me [Mr. Lowell] a proposition 
from Messrs. Brooks and William Boott, which was rejected, he had 
taken the precaution of providing himself with a release, duly exe- 
cuted hy them, of all demands on Mr. Boott as executor and trustee, 
to he handed to me in case the offer were accepted.'^ 

This sentence, connected with the general scope of the 
" Reply," gives us to understand, that Judge Warren was so 
well aware of the harsh character and unreasonable preten- 
sions of myself and Mr. William Boott, (causeless and relent- 



628 



less persecutors, — so the " Reply " holds out, — of Mr. J, 
Wright Boott,) that he would not even trust his own clients 
to stand by their bargain, if one should be made ; but " had 
taken the precaution " to bind them, beforehand, to a formal 
release, which he drew of his own motion, and got them to 
sign, in order that he might be sure to hold them, by handing 
it at once to Mr. Lowell, if he should accept our proposal. 

The further intimation is, that some proposition was there- 
upon made by Judge Warren, in our behalf, of such a charac- 
ter as might be expected from unreasonable men, and that 
it was promptly rejected. 

Now, — ^will the reader believe it ? — the onli/ proposition^ 
made by us, through our counsel, Judge Warren, to Mr. Low- 
ell, was, on consultation with Mr. J. Wright Boott, for whom 
Mr. Lowell acted, immediately accepted ; — and Judge War- 
ren, instead of voluntarily arming himself against his own 
clients with a release, for the purpose of making that prop- 
osition, in fact drew the release, spoken of, three days after 
the proposition had been accepted, and then drew it at the 
special request of Mr, John A. Lowell ! 

I cite Mr. Lowell himself, as my witness. The original of 
the following letter, in his own hand-writing, is in my hands, 
dated, it will be observed, three days before the release ! 

LETTER FROM J. A. LOWELL to C. H. WARREK. 

" Boston, Dec. 6, 1844. 
" Dear Sir : 

" I have arranged the matter with Mr, Boott upon the 
terms agreed upon between us. 

As Mr. Loring is very much engaged, / shall feel much obliged 
if you will prepare a discharge, ^noh as, under the circumstances, you 
think your clients should sign, and I will submit it to Mr. Loring. 

I think it would be well if it were so drafted that Mr. Wells and 
the other members of the family here could unite in it. 

I am, 

Yrs., with much respect, 

J. A. Lowell." 
Charles H. Warren, Esq., 

Court Street." 



629 



The " clients''^ of Judge Warren were Mrs. Brooks and my- 
self as heirs in her right, and Mr. William Boott, as an heir 
in his own right. The " trustees under the will of Kirk 
Boott,'' were not his clients. Those trustees merely repre- 
sented the Kirk Boott family. Judge Warren never was 
retained in behalf of that family, nor requested to act for me 
in that representative capacity. Indeed, I had no right, as 
I conceived, to move in that capacity, except concurrently 
with Mr. Lowell, my co-trustee. 

The proposal, which Judge Warren had made, — the only 
proposal ever made by him in behalf of his clients, — is de- 
scribed by himself, thus : — ^^ I proposed to him [Mr, Lowell] 
to waive all examination of the account and its vouchers, 
that Mr. B. should resign his trust, and that the heirs, upon 
his doing so, should give him a release of all further claims 
upon him." [Ante, p. 139.] The same gentleman says, " Mr. 
Lowell, after consultation with Mr. J. W. Boott, acceded to 
my proposition." [Ante, p. 140.] The foregoing letter of 
Mr. Lowell was his notice to Judge Warren of the result of 
that consultation. It informed him that Mr. Boott agreed to 
our terms. An executed release had not been obtained from 
us beforehand, to be handed over forthwith ; but Mr. Low- 
ell's letter, signifying his acceptance of our offer, requests 
that a draft of a release should be prepared. This was no 
novelty proposed by him, — still less by our own counsel, — 
for the purpose of binding us, but a paper, necessary to be 
drawn by somebody, conformably to our voluntary offer, 
that offer having been accepted. Judge Warren was the 
person who drew the instrument, not as a measure oi precau- 
tion, for his own security in making a proposal, but after the 
acceptance of the proposal, and only because Mr. Lowell 
requested him to draw it, in consequence of the erjgagements 
of Mr. Lowell's own counsel. The paper was not made, or 
executed, before the nintlt of December, as its date shows ; 
[Ante, p. 622.] and our proposal was accepted on the sixthof 
December, as the foregoing letter shows. Yet, the very 
exact and scrupulous author of the '' Reply " says, — 



630 

" When Judge Warren brought to me a proposition from Messrs. 
Brooks and William Boott, which was rejected, he had taken the pre- 
caution of providing himself with a release, duly executed hy them 
of all demands on Mr. Boott as executor and trustee, to he handed to 
me in case the offer loere accepted. Although this contingency had 
not happened, he [Judge Warren] yet left the paper with me," &c. 

So much for the beginning of Mr. Lowell's statement of 
facts. His next step is to speak of some subsequent conversa- 
tion with me, as having led to the final settlement, stating that 
I proposed to him that he should write m>e a letter, em^hodying 
the substance of what he had said, — as if he had been the 
author of the proposal of compromise ; that he accordingly 
Avrote a letter, dated December 10, of which he prints the 
first sentence^ only, and gives the reader to understand that 
the whole letter did but repeat his verbal proposal for a com- 
promise ; and that my answer, of December 11, which he 
prints entire, was my assent to his proposal, and constituted 
the agreement of compromise. [Ante, pp. 625-6.] 

Now in this, also, I am compelled to say, there is not one 
word of truth, from beginning to end. The reader will ob- 
serve, that, by Mr. Lowell's letter of December 6, above 
printed, assenting to Judge Warren's proposal, the agreement of 
compromise was complete. Mr. Boott had agreed to resign, 
and we had agreed, thereupon, to make no opposition to his 
account, and to release him from all further claims. This 
was the compromise. Nothing remained, to be agreed upon 
further, unless it were the independent point of selecting some 
suitable person to succeed to the trust. This hardly required 
an agreement, as the judge of probate has full power to fill 
such vacancies. However, the parties endeavoured to agree 
in guiding his selection ; and the reader will observe, that 
my letter of December 11, which I shall presently print, 
merely signifies that Mr. William Boott and myself had 
fixed upon Mr. Charles G. Loring to be that trustee, if 
acceptable to Mr. Lowell. A new fact, which the reader 
should now be informed of, is, that Mr. Lowell tvas ex- 
tremely desirous to be that new trustee liimself ; for what 
reasons the reader may judge, when he sees the whole evi- 



631 



dence in this case. It was this desire, on his part, which 
produced a suspension of further action (except in the 
preparing of the release,) from the sixth to the eleventh of 
December. 

Judge Warren, when he next saw Mr. Lowell, after the 
receipt of his letter signifying the assent of Mr. Boott to the 
surrender of his trust, (the letter of December 6,) took oc- 
casion to suggest, that Mr. Lowell's own counsel and con- 
nexion, Mr. Charles G. Loring, would be a very suitable 
person to be the trustee, and, as he thought, would be 
agreeable to me. Mr. Lowell, of course, could make no 
reasonable objection, and said nothing, I believe, to Judge 
Warren, of his own wish and expectation in that behalf; 
but, on the contrary, gave him to understand that he thought 
Mr. Loring would be a most excellent choice. He met me. 
however, not long after, and the conversation occurred, to 
which he alludes in general terms, and a part of which I 
shall now describe more particularly. 

It was, in truth, one of several conversations between Mr. 
Lowell and myself about this time, embracing, among other 
things, his remarks, concerning former mismanagement of 
the family property, quoted by Mrs. Brooks, on my report, 
in her letter to her mother, of December 11, before referred 
to. [Ante, p. 596.] 

The particular conversation, now in question, occurred in 
State-street. It was begun by Mr. Lowell ; and his object 
was to urge upon me, the propriety and expediency, under 
all circumstances, of permitting him, (Mr. Lowell,) to be- 
come the new trustee. He alluded to the character of 
the property, to his familiar acquaintance with it, to his 
long and intimate relations with the Boott family, and 
to the fact that he was already an agent for Mrs. Boott, 
who would, undoubtedly, be gratified to have him for 
her trustee. He said that other members of the family 
desired it ; and he proceeded to tell me how he intended 
to manage the property, very advantageously both for 
her and for the heirs, and that Mr. J. Wright Boott, whose 



632 



unfitness for such a trust he admitted in very plain terms, 
should not be allowed to intermeddle. A portion of his re- 
marks, respecting his proposed management of the property, 
I told him I thought he had better reduce to writing ; and that 
I would confer on the matter with Mr. William Boott. Those 
remarks were made in answer to my observation that I did 
not think very well of manufacturing stock, as an investment 
for such a trust, because of its fluctuations and irregularity of 
income. 

That he should become the trustee certainly seemed, on 
many accounts, both natural and desirable. My general con- 
fidence in Mr. Lowell's adaptation for such an office had, at 
that time, been in no degree shaken by the merely overzeal- 
ous part, (as, in my then state of information, I supposed it to 
be,) which he had been acting in behalf of Mr. J. Wright 
Boott. I had but one real objection ; and that I, at last, 
frankly stated to him, to this effect : — 

" Mr. Lowell, the only objection that I see, upon the whole, 
to your being the family trustee, is, that Mrs. Brooks and I 
have reason to believe, that you have allowed your name 
to be used with Mrs. Boott to prejudice her mind against 
certain members of her family." Mr. Lowell's answer was, 
in a very emphatic tone, " If my name has been used, Mr. 
Brooks, to prejudice Mrs. Boott against any of her family, 
I assure you it has been entirely without my knowledge or 
consent." To this I said, moving towards the door of an 
insurance office, near at hand, " Just step in here, then, and 
put those very words on paper, and I agree, at once, that 
you shall be the trustee." '-No," says Mr. Lowell, "lam 
not going to put any thing on paper about it." My reply, 
was, "Very well, — then you can't be the trustee, — that's 
all." And thereupon we parted. 

Mr. Lowell, perhaps, did not think me so serious, as I was, 
in considering his mischievous interference, as we regarded 
it, in our family affairs, to be an insurmountable objection. 
At any rate, not a great while after, I received his letter of 
December 10, of which he has printed the first sentence 



6S3 



only, — presuming, no doubt, from the circumstance of my 
omission to print that letter formerly, while printing .many 
less important pieces of evidence, that the original must 
have been lost or destroyed. He ran for luck in that ; and, 
with his usual sagacity, guessed aright. I had lost it, and 
searched for it in vain, at the time of my former writing. 
But his sagacity could not enable him to foresee that I 
should afterwards recover it, — as I did, — though not till 
some considerable time after the publication of his " Reply." 
I shall, now, since he has favoured us with so small a 
specimen, lay it, in full, before the reader. 

LETTER FROM JOHN A. LOWELL to EDWARD BROOKS. 

" Boston, Dec. lOih, 1844. 
"Edward Brooks, Esq., 
Dear Sir: 
" I do not know why I should be worrying myself about other 
people's affairs, — but the kindness that I experienced in early life 
from Mr. and Mrs. Boott has endeared to me all of the name, and 
I would fain do something to alleviate the dissensions existing among 
their children. 

I know of no mode so likely to effect this end, as to remove all 
occasion for future collision. 

Should the property now be placed in the hands of a trustee, in 
whom all parties could not but place an implicit confidence ; who 
would consider the interests of the heirs as much confided to him, as 
that of your mother; who would endeavour to keep the capital entire 
^y 3PPb'^"o ^^^e overflowing of prosperous years, with Mrs. Boott's 
consent, to the increase of the fund ; in such case, I think that the 
manufacturing property might be preserved with obvious advantage 
to all parties. 

Under a different management, I agree with you that it would be 
wiser and more just that it should be sold, and the proceeds funded in 
a way that would not endanger the capital. 

The plan that occurred to m-^. was this. 

Mrs. Boott to expend a sum to be agreed upon between her and 
the trustee. 

The remainder of the income to be funded and kept separate. 
At Mrs. Boott's decease, so much of this reserved fund to be applied 
to the credit of the estate as shall be required to make good the capi- 
tal. The residue, if any, to be considered as Mrs. Boott's personal 
estate, devisable or inheritable as such. 

I have not communicated these views to any one, but have no 
doubt of obtaining Mrs. Boott's concurrence in them. 

I could not advise Mr. J. W. Boott to resign unless a successor 
were previously agreed upon. T am, Dear Sir, truly yours, 

83 J. A. Lowell." 



634 



Though it be stepping aside from the point immediately 
in hand, I desire, while this letter is fresh, to call the reader's 
especial attention to the clause, which proposes to take, from 
time to time, out of the income of the trust property, the 
means of forming a reserved fund, and further proposes, that, 
" at Mrs. Boott's decease, so much of this reserved fund " is 
" to be applied to the credit of the estate, as shall be required to 
make good the capital.''^ The reader may at least suspect 
that he sees in this one excellent reason why Mr. Lowell 
thought it inexpedient to extend the quotation from his 
letter beyond the first sentence, — which expresses nothing 
but his own amiable sentiments towards the whole Boott 
connexion. 

What did he mean by reserving income "to be applied to 
the credit of the estate,''^ and " to make good the capital ?'^ 
Perhaps he will say that he meant no more by this language 
than by the preceding phrase of " keeping the capital entire.'^ 
I cannot undertake to affirm what he did mean. But making 
good the capital, and crediting the estate, seem rather to 
indicate the restoration of that, which had been already lost, 
than the mere keeping up of the existing capital, Avhich the 
new trustee might receive. The true question is, — What did 
Mr. Lowell expect me to understand from the letter ? To 
enable the reader to determine that, he must place himself in 
my position at the time. I had agreed to allow Mr. Boott's 
account, just as it stood, provided he would resign. Mr. 
Lowell considered that a point settled, if he pleased to have it 
so. He had no longer a motive for standing on particularly 
high ground. The account, — notwithstanding its valuation 
of the stocks above their market value when they were first 
stamped as trust property, — admitted, as I have shown, that 
Mrs. Boott's trust fund was defective by $3715 45. That 
the trust capital had been impaired and lost, to that extent at 
least, was apparent on the face of the paper. In conversa- 
tion, (the account being agreed to,) Mr. Lowell had freely 
admitted Mr, Boott's unfitness for the trust, and the conside- 
rable losses sustained, in consequence, by all persons inter- 



635 



ested in the estate. Mrs. Brooks's letter of December 11, 
{the day after the letter of Mr. Lowell, now in question,) 
shows what Mr. Lowell had just said to me, as I had reported 
it before any controversy had arisen between us. The letter 
was printed in my former pamphlet, and will reappear, whh 
other family correspondence, in another part of this case. 
A sentence or two, once before extracted, should be read in 
this connexion : — 

" Mr. Brooks has this week had two long conversations with Mr. 
Lowell, who said he agreed entirely with Mr. Brooks in his views, 
and Mr. Lowell denied ever having said or thought, that Mr. Boott 
had managed the estate well, or that he considered him a fit person to 
have the care of property. Mr, Lowell then went on to say, ' If 
you, Mr. Brooks, or I, or any good man of business, had had the care 
of that estate, what a noble property it would have been. Mr. Boott 
should have been worth S 1 00,000 ; each heir should have had a 
handsome fortune, and Mrs. Boott, with more money to spend yearly 
than sh« ever had, should have laid by $50,000 to have bequeathed 
as she liked, and that it was a sort of miracle that any thing was left.' " 

Did not Mr. Lowell expect, then, that I should interpret 
his letter conformably to his recent conversation ? Did he 
not intend that I should understand his plan to be to restore 
lost capital out of future income ? Did he not expect that 
his plan, with that feature in it, would be more likely to be 
agreeable to me ; and did he not intend that I should put 
that construction on it ? His '^ Reply " was written, unfor- 
tunately for him, under a belief that this letter had not been 
preserved, and that nothing bearing the signature of John A. 
Lowell, could be brought against him by me, which would 
even bear doubtfully on the question of Mr. Boott's admitted 
mismanagement. He could not afford to admit, in the 
" Reply," that he had formerly admitted any thing ; still less 
to expose, by printing his whole letter, so much as an ambi- 
guity, even, on a point so vital in this controversy. This, I 
believe to have been one motive for the suppression. But, 
however, that may be, I shall show another reason, too plain 
for doubt ; namely, that the letter, however interpreted as to 
the making good or keeping good of capital, distinctltj falsi- 
fies the ^' Reply ^^ in a very material statement, respecting 



636 



Mr. Lowell's authority to sign the release in my behalf. He 
says he was authorized by 'iiiy answer to this letter. But 
when the letter and the answer are placed side by side, it 
will be seen that this pretence has not even a colour of foun- 
dation in truth. 

But, — to return to narrative, — the general object of the 
letter was quite apparent to me. It merely followed up our 
previous conversations, with a view to obtaining the trustee- 
ship, which would aid Mr. Lowell in keeping his long-estab- 
lished control over the Boott family and property. This was 
the surest way to secure such settlements of accounts, and 
such answers to curious inquiries, as might best suit his ends. 
Let us look to the indications of the letter. 

The very conciliating sentence, with which it opens,— 
declaring the absence of all personal interest, — -adverting 
to the early kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Boott, which had so 
" endeared " to him " all of the name," — and setting forth 
his sincere desire to do something to alleviate the dissen- 
sions of their children, — was well calculated to smooth 
over the effect of any little indiscreet movement on his 
part, which we might suppose to have influenced the 
feelings of Mrs. Boott. It was to answer as a substitute 
for the written disclaimer, which I had asked for. I had ex- 
pressed my doubts of the expediency of keeping a trust fund 
of that description invested in so fluctuating a property as 
manufacturing stock, which had, at one time, yielded an 
annual income of nearly $30,000, and, at another time, none. 
It was one object of the writer to show how this kind of 
property, yielding large income on the whole, might, — if 
managed by a trustee having influence enough with Mrs. 
Boott to obtain her consent to a reservation from years of 
abundance, — be made to turn to the advantage of the heirs ; 
and, particularly, of those of the heirs, (Mr. William Boott, 
Mrs. Brooks and myself,) against whom Mrs. Boott had been 
really prejudiced through Mr. Lowell's interference, as I shall 
hereafter show. This would, of course, be effected, if a por- 
tion of her income were withdrawn from her own disposal, 



637 



and applied to the restoration of the lost capital of the es- 
tate for the benefit of those, who were entitled to it. But 
the main idea, intended to be conveyed, without stating it 
in direct language, was, that the writer^ in consequence of 
his known influence over Mrs. Boott, was the man, of all 
others, to effect this, should he he made trustee. " I have 
not communicated these views to any one," he says, ^' bat 
have no doubt of obtaining Mrs. Bootfs concurrence in 
them.^^ As a still further inducement to the selection of 
himself for the trust, the last sentence suggests, — notwith- 
standing that Mr. J. Wright Boott's resignation had once 
been agreed to, as the reader has now seen, under Mr. Low- 
ell's own hand in his letter of December 6, — that the pro- 
posed resignation was still open to retraction, and that he (Mr. 
Lowell,) " could not advise Mr. J. W. Boott to resign, unless 
a successor were previously agreed upon.^'' 

The expectation undoubtedly was, that, upon these sug- 
gestions, we should immediately assent to his succession. 
But the opinion of Mr. William Boott and myself was, that 
the whole income of the trust fund, however invested, fairly 
belonged to Mrs. Boott, and ought to be at her own disposal ; 
and our feeling of objection to Mr. Lowell, as the family 
trustee, — ^growing out of his interference with Mrs. Boott, to 
bias her opinions concerning the course we had taken in an 
unfortunate family difference, respecting the conduct and 
sanity of Mr. J. Wright Boott, — -was quite insuperable. 

Without undertaking to except to his scheme, therefore, 
I simply replied, as follows : — - 

EDWARD BROOKS to JOHN A. LOWELL. 

"Dec. 11, 1844. 
" Jno. a. Lowell, Esq., 

Dear Sir, — I have shown your letter to Mr. W. Boott. We 
have conferred together upon it, and find nothing to except to. 

We have fixed on Mr. Charles G. Loring as the new trustee. 
From what Judge Warren said last week, we infer that this gentle- 
man will be agreeable to you, and he is entirely so to us. 
With great regard, 

Your Obd't Serv't, 

Edward Bilooks." 



It was not easy to escape from this. A formal nomination 
was made ; the person could not reasonably be excepted to,— 
especially by Mr. Lowell, who had, in fact, already commit- 
ted himself on that point to Judge Warren ; — and, after 
another brief conversation with me, finding that I was im- 
movable on the subject of his own appointment by my consent, 
he handed my letter to Judge Warren, with notice that our 
nomination was agreed to ; and our release of Mr. J. Wright 
Boott, signed by myself and Mrs. Brooks and Mr. William 
Boott, was thereupon handed by Judge Warren to Mr. Low- 
ell, in order that he might collect the signatures of other 
parties. 

The reader will now notice the following points : — 

1. The original proposal for a compromise came from 
us, — not from Mr. Lowell, — and was, simply, that we would 
waive all proof and inquiry about the account, and release 
all our claims on Mr. Boott, if he would resign, and allow 
the admitted property to go into new hands. 

2. An acceptance of this proposal was signified in writ- 
ing by Mr. Lowell, as soon as he had consulted with Mr. 
Boott. 

3. No proposition of ours was rejected. 

4. Judge Warren, when he made our proposal to Mr. 
Lowell, had ?iot " taken the precaution of providing himself 
with a release duly executed" by us ; but, after our proposal 
had been accepted, drew the release at the particular request 
of Mr. Lowell, and in conformity with our original proposal. 

5. It was not a conversation between Mr. Lowell and me, 
which led to the settlement ; but the general terms of settle- 
ment were substantially agreed on, in the manner above stat- 
ed, between Judge Warren and Mr. Lowell, leaving no fur- 
ther subject for agreement, except the independent question, 
who should be the successor in the trust. 

6. The sole object of Mr. Lowell, in the subsequent 
conversation with me, was to induce me to agree that he, 
Mr. Lowell, should be the successor ; which I declined, for 
the reason stated. 



639 



7. Mr. Lowell's letter, of December 10, of which he 
prints the opening sentence, was not^ as he suggests, the 
basis of the settlement, (which had been agreed to four days 
before,) but a letter having the same object with his conver- 
sation^ and suggesting, by coimexion with that previous con- 
versation, something, which was not agreed to by us, name- 
ly, that he should be the trustee. 

8. The proposal for the appointment of Mr. Loring, 
came from us, and not, as the " Reply," might lead its 
reader to infer, from Mr. Lowell, — but was merely acqui- 
esced in by him, much, I imagine, to his own discomfiture, 
when he found he could not be the trustee himself. 

All these matters, — except what passed in the conversation 
between Mr. Lowell and me, — the reader now has in proof, 
by the letters produced ; and, although the tenor of that con- 
versation cannot be directly proved, either by a witness or a 
writing, the fact of a conversation is stated by Mr. Lowell ; 
and also, that it related to a ^^ plan for the future manage- 
ment of the trust fund.'''' The substance of this plan, 
which, he says, ''had formed the subject of our conversation 
in the morning," he also says, is embodied in his letter of 
December 10. That letter, of which, he, supposing the 
original lost, suppressed all but the first sentence, I produce 
in full; and, although it does not state, in terms, that his 
own appointment to the trusteeship was a part of the 
" plan," I submit to the reader, whether it does not point- 
edly support that conclusion, which I report to have been 
the purpose of the conversation, followed up by this 
letter. 

I further desire it to be noted, that every one of the eight 
propositions, above stated, and mostly jorove<i by contempo- 
raneous papers, is a direct reverse to some one of the daring 
statements, or suggestions, compressed into a single page of 
the "Reply"! 

But the falsehood of the " Reply," its purpose of mislead- 
ing, and the intention to suppress so much of a contempora- 
neous letter as would expose the falsehood, become perfectly 



640 



transparent, when we perceive that, after citing the ^rs^ sen- 
tence only of Mr. Lowell's letter of December 10, and print- 
ing my entire answer of December 11, the ''Reply," goes 
on to say, in reference to my answer, — 

" Not one word, it will be observed, about any reluctance to con- 
sent to this arrangement as joint trustee with me under the will of 
Mr. Kirk Boott. The letter is a full and cordial assent to the pro- 
posed arrangement without reservation /" 

What the proposed arrangement was, is artfully concealed 
from the reader, by the suppression of all the material part of 
Mr. Lowell's letter. But the reader is given to understand, 
from the entire statement, that the proposal was a general pro- 
posal of compromise, distinctly including my claims as trustee, — 
and that my letter was ^'a full and cordial assent" to that 
proposal ! 

Now, the reader, by laying the two letters together, will 
observe, that my answer was not only not an assent to any 
general arrangement of compromise proposed hy Mr, Lowell^ 
but was a mere notice, that, without excepting to his scheme 
for the future management of the property, should he be- 
come the trustee, Mr. William Boott and myself had selected, 
and thereby nominated, Mr. Charles G. Loring for that office. 
There is " not one word, it will be observed," in his own 
suppressed letter, which I was answering, about any arrange- 
ment to be made by me as ^^ joint trustee'''' with Mr. Low- 
ell, " under the will of Mr. Kirk Boott." There is not even 
the most distant allusion to any such matter, either in his 
letter, or in my answer. It is not even pretended, in the 
" Reply," that this subject of releasing claims, held by us, 
jointly, in trust for others, had ever been broached in any 
conversation, preceding the correspondence, so as to be drawn 
into it by implication. Yet, the " Reply" gives the reader to 
understand that Mr. Lowell's suppressed letter must have em- 
braced that subject distinctly ; my letter is printed as evidence 
of my " full and cordial assent" to the supposed proposal ; 
and, finally, the '' Reply" explicitly declares, — in reference to 
Mr. Lowell's signing of my name as trustee, to a release of 



641 



the claims held by us in trust, — '- This I never doubted that 
I was fully authorized to do by Mr. Brooks's note above 

CJTED !" 

But the reader has not, yet, all the facts before him. I 
have shown several deliberate misstatements of facts, in this 
part of the " Reply." But I propose to show several more ; 
and, particularly, to show, too distinctly for escape, the orig- 
inal falsehood, through which the account was passed, by the 
unauthorized and secret signing of my name to the release. 

After Mr. Lowell had signified to Judge Warren his assent 
to our nomination of Mr. Charles G. Loring, (whereby every 
subject of agreement relative to the compromise was conclud- 
ed, and nothing remained but to carry it into execution,) the 
next stage in the proceeding was the drafting of a deed of the 
mansion-house for the heirs to sign, — their signature to such 
a deed being the original desideratum, which had led to the 
stating of an executor's account, and to the compromise con- 
cerning the allowance of the account. This deed bears date 
December 14, 1844, — the date, probably, at which it was writ- 
ten. It was first executed, as mentioned in my former state- 
ment, by Mr. and Mrs. Wells, apparently in the presence of Mr. 
Lowell, who is an attesting witness to their signatures. It 
Avas acknowledged by them, December 16. It was executed, 
in the evening of the same day, by myself and wife, and by 
Mr. William Boott at my house, where my late father, hap- 
pened at the time to be. He witnessed our signatures, and 
took our acknowledgements, dated December 16. These 
dates and attestations are proved by the recorded deed. The 
release of all claims on Mr. Boott, which had been previously 
drafted by Judge Warren, (December 9,) at Mr. Lowell's re- 
quest, and sent to me, had been signed by me, personally, but 
not as trustee^ and by my wife, and by Mr. William Boott, and 
had been returned to Judge Warren. By him, it seems, it 
was handed to Mi'. Lowell, who, we are told, ''was not to 
use it without his previous authority." 

The "Reply," moreover, informs us, that, — 



642 



"On ihefollowivg probate day, Monday. December 16, 1844, (the 
dates are here important,) this paper was exhibited to the judge of 
probate, in evidence that the opposition to the passage of the accounts, 
formerly notified to him, was withdrawn, and the accounts were 
accordingly on that day passed. Mr. Boott, the next week, when he 
presented his thii'd account, which was one of mere form, left all his 
discharges for record." [Ante, p. 626.] 

Now, although it is true that the disputed account was 
pissed December 16, and passed upon an exhibit of sun- 
dry releases, iyiduding the release now in question^ and that 
this last mentioned release, when so exhibited, bore the sig- 
natures not only of myself personally, and of Mrs. Brooks, 
and Mr. William Boott, but also of Mr. and Mrs. Wells, and 
of ''J. A. Lowell, for himself and Edward Brooks^ trustees 
under the will of Kirk Boott," it is material for the reader to 
know that neither Judge Warren, nor myself, nor Mr. Will- 
iam Boott, nor any person in our behalf, was present in the 
probate court, when that transaction occurred. This does 
not rest on my statement. I cite Judge Warren's nearly 
contemporaneous letter, of December 19, 1844, heretofore 
printed. He says, expressly, " No party appeared in the 
probate court to question Mr. J. W. Boott's account ; and, so 
far as I heard, no examination of vouchers has been had or 
sought." [Ante, p. 140.] Mr. Lowell himself also says, in- 
cidentally, respecting the accounts, '■'•no one appearing, to 
object to them." [Ante, p. 627.] 

I next desire the reader to note, that Mr. Charles G. Loring, 
also, was not present on that occasion, although he had been, 
all along, acting as the counsel of Mr. Boott and Mr. Lowell, 
and was himself to be the new trustee. He does not appear 
to have been connected with the transactions of December 
16. He had merely agreed, soon after the receipt of my 
letter of December 11, to accept an appointment to the 
trust ; but he did nothing, personally, in the business, un- 
til after the date of the transactions now complained of. 
The proof of his absence from the probate court of the six- 
teenth of December is, that tha application, in his name, 
made and dated on that day, and stating '^ that he has been 



643 



requested by the parties in interest to act as such trustee, and 
that he accepts of said trust, and is ready to give bond ac- 
cording to law," is signed, — not by himself, but — " Charles 
Greely Loring, by J. A. Lowell.^'' This appears by the 
original paper on the files of the probate office. Mr. Loring's 
bond, which was, of course, signed by himself, as well as 
by Mr. John A. Lowell, the sole surety, it is true, hears date, 
on the same day. Bat, though so dated, to correspond with 
the record of his appoiatmsnt, it was, no doubt, executed on 
a subsequent day, at any rate, not in the probate court, but at 
his own office ; since it is witnessed by two gentlemen, 
(Messrs. C. W. Loring and Seth Webb, jr.,) belonging to that 
office, and not by the register or clerks of the probate office, 
as is usual with bonds executed there. 

Nobody, but Mr. Lowell, appears to have had any hand in 
the needful preparations, (except the mere drafting of legal 
papers,) for a transfer of the trust. 

0.1 the same sixteenth of December, Messrs. G. A. God- 
dard, L. Stan wood, and J. Pickering Putnam appear to have 
been appointed appraisers, two of these gentlemen being at 
the time clerks of Mr. Lowell. But if these persons had 
been present in the probate court on that day, they would 
have been then sworn, before the judge, or register, whereas 
they were, in fact, sworn December 19, as the record shows, 
before "/. A. Lowell, Justice of the Peace f^ and their ap- 
praisement was not returned into the probate court, until 
December 23. [B. App. p. 54.] 

The deeds of transfer of the manufacturing stock to the 
new trustee are, moreover, dated December 21, and were ex- 
ecuted by Mr. Boott, apparently in the presence of Mr. 
Lowell, alone. At least, it seems so, from the following cer- 
tificate concerning the seventy-one Merrimack shares. 



644 



CERTIFICATE or Mr. WILLIAM G. WISE. 

Lowell, May 18, 1850. 
Dear Sir, 

Your favor of yesterday was duly at hand. The deed 
of seventy-one shares from J. W. Boott executor, to C. G. Loring, 
trustee, is dated 21st December, 1844. 
Witness, John A. Lowell. 
Acknowledged before John A. Lowell, as Justice of the Peace. 
Respectfully, 

Your ob't serv't, 

WM. G. WISE. 
Edward Brooks, Esq., Boston. 

It may be fairly inferred that the deeds of the thirty-nine 
shares of Boston stock were made at this same time, in the 
same presence ; and the deed of the stable in Bowdoin-street 
appears, by the record, to have been executed on Saturday, 
December 21, in the presence of Mr. Lowell, and of his 
clerk, Mr. Putnam. They are the only attesting witnesses 
to that deed, and it was acknowledged on the same day be- 
fore '' /, A. Lowell, Justice of the Peace ;" but not put on 
record till December 23. 

December 23 is also the date of the executor's third and 
final account, and the day, on which it was passed and al- 
lowed in the probate court. [B. App. pp. 52, 53.] In this 
account he charges himself with the balance of his account 
of November 18, and with certain dividends subsequently 
received, and with the proceeds of the mansion-house, and 
asks to be allowed for the property transferred to the new 
trustee, after deducting the ''cash balance," claimed upon 
the former account as " due to the executor." 

Monday, the twenty-third of December, therefore, was the 
day, on which the business of the compromise was consum- 
mated in the probate court, and the day, on which the trans- 
fers of property probably took effect by delivery and record, 
notwithstanding that the papers, relating to the appointment 
of the new trustee, and to the nomination of appraisers, 
as well as the decree allowing the disputed account, are 
dated December 16. That part of the business, only, ap- 



645 



pears to have been acted upon by the judge of probate on 
this last mentioned day, nobody, (besides the register and his 
clerks,) being present before him, that I can discover, except 
Mr. Boott and Mr. Lowell. In short, Mr. Lowell, on this 
occasion, appears to fill to perfection the part of that ''verita- 
ble Mephistophiles," to use his own phrase, [L. p. 22.] which 
he says I represent him to be, — managing, himself, in his 
own way, the whole business, for all parties, up to the twen- 
ty-third day of December. On that day, the new trustee, Mr. 
Loring, first makes his appearance in the probate office, by 
returning an inventory, and signing his approval to the ex- 
ecutor's thii-d and final account. [B. App. pp. 53—5.] The 
previous account, passed on the sixteenth, must have 
been passed, therefore, entirely upon Mr. LoivelPs repre- 
sentation that it was agreed to by all parties, and upon 
an exhibit to the judge of releases, which appeared to 
embrace all parties adversely interested ; at least, the right 
of the Kirk Boott family being vested in Mr. Lowell 
and myself as joint trustees, it appeared, upon the face 
of the release, that Mr. Lowell had signed it for me, 
as well as for himself ; and it might be fairly inferred that 
this was done ivith my assent, and in my presence ; since 
Hugh Mathews, the witness to my own private signature, 
was, apparently, the witness, also, to the signature of "J. 
A. Lowell, /or himself and Edward Brooks, trustees under 
the will of Kirk Boott." Through an unsuspicious negli- 
gence, not very uncommon in the witnessing of papers, there 
was nothing to restrict his certificate of attestation to one 
signature, rather than another; there was but one date to the 
paper ; and, so far as the paper showed, it appeared to have 
been signed by all the persons who signed it, at one and the 
same tim.e, although, in truth, no one but Mrs. Brooks and 
myself, had signed in the presence of Hugh Mathews. 

Mr. J. Wright Boott, it will be observed, too, knew no 
more about this part of the business, (the release,) than the 
judge of probate did. He had held no personal communica- 
tion, either with me or with my counsel, and had no agency 



646 



in obtaining signatures, except through Mr. Lowell. How 
critically the releases were examined by the judge, I do not 
know; probably they were barely glanced at. The state- 
ment of such a witness, accompanied by the mere offer of 
papers to prove it, was perhaps, enough to satisfy him. At 
any rate, Mr. Lowell must have caused the judge to under- 
stand that the releases embraced every party representing a 
legal interest, and that the ^^ trustees under the luill of Kirk 
Boott^'' in 'particular^ assented^ in that capacity^ to the account ; 
since, otherwise, it is quite incredible that the judge should 
have allowed such an account to pass suh silentio^ against 
minors not represented, without even an ordinary exam- 
ination of vouchers. Indeed, the '' Reply " says, — •" This 
paper [the release] was exhibited to the judge of probate, 
in evidence that the opposition to the passage of the ac- 
counts, formerly notified to him, was withdrawn, and the 
accounts were accordingly on that day passed." But, although 
the paper is said to have been thus shown to the judge, for 
the purpose avowed by Mr. Lowell, it seems that its posses- 
sion was not parted with for an instant ; at least it was not 
deposited in the probate office, for record or examination, at 
that time ; since the " Reply" tells us, that '' Mr. Boott, the 
next loeek, [December 23,] when he presented his third ac- 
count, which was one of mere form, left all his discharges 
for record.'''' [Ante, p. 626.] 

Why Mr. Lowell should call that third account ''one of 
mere for^n,^^ I do not well see ; since it charged the executor 
with nearly $30,000 of additional property, and claimed an 
allowance for the transfer of all the property to the new 
trustee. [B. App. p. 52.] This transfer of the property to 
a new trustee was, as before remarked, the yqcj point of the 
compromise ; and the paper, which Mr. Lowell had so con- 
siderately signed in my behalf, it seems, was not left for 
record^ so that it could be examined by any curious party, 
until this point had been reached, — that is, not until the 
whole business of the probate office was finished^ — a week 
AFTER the passing of the second account on the faith of 

THAT paper. 



Dated December 
9, 1844 



647 



It further appears, by the following receipt on file in the 
probate office, that, very soon after Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
death, all the original releases were, again, withdrawn from 
the files, and taken possession of by Mr. Lowell : — 

RECEIPT. 

"Boston, March 31, 1845. Received of the Register of Probate 
the following papers relating to the settlement of the accounts of J. 
W. Boott, executor of Kirk Boott : — 

Release from Mary Boott, widow, dated London, May 29, 1844. 

" '' Francis Boott, M. D , " " " " 

" " Edward and Eliza Brooks, 

" « Frances Wells, 

" " William Boott, 

" '' William Wells, } 

" " J. A. Lowell for self, and Ed- 

ward Brooks, Trustees under 
the will of Kirk Boott, 

J. A. LOWELL, 

by J. Pickering Putnam." 

Hence, it was only from the books of record, in w^hich cop- 
ies of the releases had been preserved, that, when an occasion 
arose, which led me, three years after the event, to obtain a 
copy of some of those records, I became accidentally acquaint- 
ed with the fact of the use, which Mr. Lowell had made of 
my name as trustee. 

But to return to the time of these transactions, and to the 
point of autJioriti/, express or implied. Mr. Lowell's sug- 
gestion to Judge Warren, in his letter of December 6, re- 
questing him to prepare a suitable discharge, is, " I think 
it would be well, if it were so drafted that Mr. and Mrs. 
Wells, and the other members of the family here^ could unite 
in it." That is, those members of the family, who were 
not Judge Warren's clients. It was accordingly drawn as we 
have seen: — "We the parties execidifig this instrument^ 
heirs at law, and representing heirs at laio, of Kirk Boott, 
&c.," '^ in consideration of one dollar," &c. '-remise, re- 
lease and discharge him the said John W. Boott, his heirs," 
&c. " from all claims and demands." That is, it was drafted, 



648 



by Mr. Lowell's request, made on the sixth of December, 
in a form suitable to embrace, not only Mr. and Mrs. Brooks, 
as heirs at law, but, also, Edward Brooks and John A. Low- 
ell, trustees, as representing, jointly^ other heirs at law. In 
that form it was sent to me, on or about the ninth of Decem- 
ber, and was executed by me, for myself only, in respect of 
Tiiy individual interest, and by Mrs. Brooks, for herself, and 
by Mr. William Boott, for himself. So executed, it was 
handed by Judge Warren to Mr. Lowell, probably on the 
eleventh of December. This was, of itself, distinct notice 
to Mr. Lowell that I did not intend to execute it in my ca- 
pacity of trustee ; since every man of business well under- 
stands, that, when he intends to execute a deed as trustee, he 
must say so, in express terms, either by writing the word 
" trustee" after his private signature, or by describing himself, 
in the instrument, as acting in that capacity ; especially if he 
possesses a private interest of his own, to which his simple 
signature might otherwise relate. 

For what purpose was the paper handed to Mr. Lowell ? 
Simply that he might examine its sufficiency, and obtain the 
signatures of such other proper parties as might choose to sign 
it. But he " was not to use it," (that is, to pass an account 
by it,) without the previous authority of Judge Warren, as 
he himself states. 

He says, indeed, that upon the receipt of my letter of De- 
cember 11, (that is the letter nominating Mr. Loring,) "I 
[Mr. Lowell,] immediately showed this letter to Judge War- 
ren, and procured his consent to make use of the release he 
had left with me." But, supposing that to be true, how was 
he "to make use'''' of it ? Does he mean to have it under- 
stood that Judge Warren authorized him to alter my own 
signature, or to sign it for me in some neio right or capacity ? 
Judge Warren, himself, possessed no such power. The ut- 
most authority, which he could, possibly, have conferred on 
Mr. Lowell, was to deliver that paper to Mr. J. Wright Boott, 
as our deed, — the deed of those parties, whom Judge War- 
ren was acting for, and precisely as they had chosen to sign 



649 



it, — whenever the object of the compromise should he secured 
hy a proper transfer of the property into the hands of a new 
trustee. In the mean time, Mr. Lowell was at liberty to 
obtain the signatures of such other proper parties, including 
" the trustees under the will of Kirk Boott," as might please 
to sign the paper ; and he might deliver it as their deed, also, 
if they should authorize him to do so. 

What was, in fact, done with it ? Mr. Lowell, having the 
paper in his possession, without my signature as trustee, first 
obtained the signatures of Mr. and Mrs. Wells, (probably at 
the same time that he obtained their signatures to the deed 
of the mansion-house,) and he next signed it, without consult- 
ing me, '■^for himself and Edward Brooks, trustees^ This 
would seem, from the date of the acknowledgement of the 
last mentioned deed, most likely to have happened on the 
sixteenth of December, and, of course, just before the pre- 
sentation of the account. But, whenever it may have hap- 
pened, it is not pretended that he ever exhibited the release, 
so signed, or gave notice of the fact that he had so signed it, 
either to me or to Judge Warren ! On the contrary, he sim- 
ply sent me, on the same sixteenth of December, the deed 
of the mansion-house, executed by Mr. and Mrs. Wells, in 
order that Mrs. Brooks and myself might sign that deed, 
without any notice whatever that he had signed the release 
in my behalf as trustee, and without any 7iotice of the pas- 
sage of the account on that very morning, or of any step 
taken towards it I 

On the fiineteenth of December, (the release being still in 
Mr. Lowell's pocket, or at least not on the files of the probate 
oflace,) Judge Warren is informed that the business is all 
done; and, having perfect confidence in the gentleman with 
whom he dealt, he would naturally suppose that it had been 
done with entire regularity, under the sanction and immediate 
superintendence of the opposite counsel, Mr. Charles G. Lo- 
ring. Accordingly, on that day, (December 19,) Judge War- 
ren, being so informed, writes to me, that, ''as a consequence, 
[of Mr. Lowell's acceding to our proposition of compromise,] 



650 



Mr. B. has resigned the trust, Mr. Loring has been appointed 
trustee, and property to the amount of one hundred thousand 
dollars or more, besides the purchase-money of the house, 
($46,000) has been transferred to him^ [Ante, p. 140.] 

I say that Judge Warren was so informed by somebody, 
because it appears by his letter, that he was not present in 
the probate office, and there is no pretence that he was pres- 
ent at the transfer of the property. Of course, all this must 
have been stated by him upon mere information. Whence 
derived, except from Mr. Lowell ? The information, as it 
turns out, was not in fact true on the day it was given ; 
for we have just seen that the transfer of property, which 
was the whole essence of the compromise, had not been 
Tnade at the date of Judge JVarren^s letter, (December 19,) 
since the deeds are dated December 21, and the business of 
the probate office was not completed XiW December 23. Nev- 
ertheless, I confided in that statement from Judge Warren, as 
he did in the statement of his informant ; and we looked no 
further ; and if we had, we should have found nothing on 
file in the probate office, all the important papers being at 
that time in Mr. Lowell's pocket. He had merely shoivn 
them to the judge, in proof of his statement, and had imme- 
diately withdrawn them again. As for me, being told by my 
counsel that the business was all done, the manner^ in which 
it was done, I supposed at the time to be immaterial. It 
was enough for me that I was not called upon to act, or to 
appear to act, for any body but myself and wife, which was 
the only point I had made relative to the manner of clos- 
ing the business. But, since the surrender of the property 
into the hands of anew trustee was my sole object, the ex- 
pectation, when the release, with m}^ signature to it, was 
handed to Mr. Lowell, must, necessarily, have been, that 
Mr. Boott's resignation, Mr. Loring's appointment, and the 
transfer of the property, would be all effected on the same 
day as one contemporaneous act ; and confidence was reposed 
in Mr. Lowell that all this should be secured, before my 
release was to be used as an effective instrument to dis- 



651 



charge Mr. Boott. It manifestly could not have been intend- 
ed that the disputed account should first be passed, and that 
the executor should be disc?iarged of all accountability, upon 
the faith of my release, and that the delivery of the property 
to a new trustee, which was the sole consideration for my 
release, should be left to the contingencies of a future day, 
in the hands of a man, who would thus have got his dis- 
charge beforehand, and whom I considered to be in a state 
of positive derangement. 

What use Mr. Lowell made of that confidence, and how 
Judge Warren, as well as Edward Brooks, was misled, the 
reader has now seen. However, since the property was, in 
fact, handed over a few days after, no harm came, I admit, 
from this particular deception ; and the only effect of the 
premature action in the probate court of December 16, and 
of the withdrawal of the papers, was to preclude all possi- 
bility of my knowing any thing, meanwhile, of the use made 
of my name as trustee, if I had happened to look for it. 

I have already remarked, that my transmission of the 
release to Mr. Lowell, with my personal signature, only, affix- 
ed to it, and no signature in my capacity of trustee, was 
notice enough to him, that I did not intend, hy any act 
of mine, to bind the interests of that trust to the compro- 
mise. But let not the reader suppose, that I left my inten- 
tion to rest upon that implied notice, alone. Far from it. / 
held a conversation with Mr. Lowell on this very pointy and 
then distinctly informed him that 1 could not, and should not, 
undertake to act as trustee for the minor children of Mr. Kirk 
Boott ^ in releasing unknown claims, but, if a release from 
them was found to stand in the way of a settlement, I would 
willingly resign my trust, and leave it to others to judge of 
the propriety, and take the responsibility, of that act. The 
date of that conversation I can not fix more nearly than 
somewhere between December 11, and December 16; but, 
the material fact, that there was such a conversation, the 
reader v/ill observe, is distinctly averred in my former state- 
ment, [Ante, p. 623] and is not denied in the '' Reply." 



652 



The allegation is simply evaded^ by passing it over without 
comment, and causing the reader to imbibe a false impres- 
sion, that the only notice from me, on this subject, was my 
letter of December 17. The reader will also observe, that 
this previous conversation is alluded to in the opening of 
my letter of December 17, printed below, which letter was 
intended to put in writing what I had already in substance 
said, so that there might be no mistake. The first line of 
the letter, it will be seen, positively proves the fact, tacitly 
admitted by Mr. Lowell, that there had been some conversa- 
tion respecting a paper to be signed by us as trustees. 

This letter, it will be remembered, accompanied the deed 
of the mansion-house, which 1 returned, executed, on the 
morning of December 17, and was as follows : — 

LETTER FKOM EDWARD BROOKS to J. A. LOWELL. 

" December 17, 1844. 
« My Dear Sir, — 

I send you the deed executed, as you requested. You spoke to me 
of another deed, or paper, to be signed hy you and myself, as trustees, 
under the will of our late friend, Kirk Boott, of Lowell. 

It is my intention immediately to resign that trust, and I should 
much prefer that the deed should be signed by the new trustee, or by 
yourself alone. 

The steps taken by myself and my wife, in this matter, have been 
based on the idea, of a compromise for the sake of peace. 

As a trustee, particularly where there is a variance between the 
cestui que trusts and the trustee, I am very differently situated. 

I am not prepared to say, that, on a full, fair and just statement of 
accounts, the executor is entitled to claim a balance of S2o,000. 

In my own case, I have a right to waive any claim I may be sup- 
posed to have. Not so as trustee. 

Presuming that you have no doubt as to the equity of the claim 
made by the executor, you can sign the deed without scruple. 

I shall send in my resignation of the trust to-day or to-morrow, 
and as this will make a settlement of accounts necessary, I shall rely 
on you to have it in readiness for the next probate day. 
Yours, very truly, 

Edward Brooks." 

« J. A. Lowell, Esq." 

This offer of resignation, lest my scruple should obstruct 
a settlement of the executor's account, in the probate court, 



653 



is conclusive proof, if any were yet wanting, that I was not 
aware^ at the time of the writing of the letter, that the ac- 
count was already settled^ and that, to effect it, my name as 
trustee had been actually signed to a release ! Yet the whole 
substance of the " Reply," on this point, consists in showing 
that the date of the probate decree is December 16, and that 
the date of my letter is December 17. What answer is this 
to my complaint ? None in the world, except as it leads the 
reader to infer a mere falsehood ; and this is more distinctly 
conveyed, when it is said, " Yet he [Brooks] now pretends 
that his letter of December 17th was a seasonable notice, &c." 
[Ante, p. 626.] 

My intention of resignation was removed in consequence 
of an interview with Mr. Lowell, immediately following 
his receipt of my letter. Such an interview he admits, in 
the passage, which I now extract. He says, indeed, that 
my letter " had no reference whatever to any release, but 
to a deed of the estate in Bowdoin Square, which required 
our joint signature ; which signature Mr. Brooks, in that let- 
ter, very capriciously as it seemed to me, refused on his part." 
But, he adds, " / immediately ive?it to his office, and per- 
suaded him to sign it.^^ [L. p. 193.] Now, my letter, it 
will be seen, referred to the paper, whatever it was, which 
had been previously spoken of by Mr. Lowell, as a paper 
requiring our joint signatures ; and, in reference to such a 
paper, I had, verbally, given to Mr. Lowell distinct notice, 
now repeated in my letter, that 1 should sign nothing, as 
trustee, to commit my cestui que trusts to a discharge of 
their claims on the executor. The release was a paper, 
answering this description. To bind the trust, it required 
our joint signatures, as trustees ; or, at least, a signature in 
behalf of each trustee, either by his own hand or by that 
of an authorized agent. But the paper, which Mr. Lowell 
brought to me, and which, he now says, was the paper he 
had referred to in our conversation, turned out to be only a 
draft of a deed of the mansion-house from the trustees under 
the will of Kirk Boott to William Lawrence, and contained 



654 



no release^ express or impliedj of claims on the executor. It 
was merely an assent to the sale of that estate, in behalf of 
the heirs, whom we, jointly, represented ; to which, now 
that it was arranged that the proceeds should go into the 
hands of a safe trustee, I saw no objection. 

I repeated my determination, however, at this interview, 
not to release any claims in behalf of those heirs ; and the 
answer was, ^^ It will not be necessary ;^^ — and this answer 
was unaccompanied by any notice of the fact, that the ac- 
count was already passed, and the release already signed, in 
the manner above described! The " Reply" pretends no 
such notice ; but it leaves the reader to infer, from the tenor 
of its statements, that I must, of course, have been acquainted 
with the transactions in the probate court, and this, the 
evidence, above detailed, proves was not the fact. The 
" Reply" also admits, by endeavouring to excuse, the answer, 
"It will not be necessary." The remark is, that I printed 
the passage " emphasizing those words to intimate, I [Mr. 
Lowell] suppose, some deception on my part, — whereas, if I 
had made any such remark, it would have been the most 
natural one in the world, as the account had been passed 
the day before !" 

This may have all been very natural to Mr. Lowell ; of 
that I shall not undertake to judge ; and, whether there was 
'' some deception " or not in this matter, the reader can 
judge for himself. 

Mr. Lowell, however, expressed hopes that I would not 
resign ; and, seeing that the deed, I was asked to sign, was 
in itself unobjectionable, and understanding from what was 
said that no release of claims, by the trustees, would be re- 
quired, I signed the deed, and, after consideration, concluded 
not to resign my trust, supposing that the interest of that 
trust had been in no way committed by any positive act. I 
knew it had not been committed by any act of mine ; and it 
never entered my head to imagine that my co-trustee should 
have dared, without my consent or knowledge, to sign my 
name as trustee to the release, or even that he had under- 



655 



taken, or would undertake, after what had passed between 
us, to sign his own name, with a view of binding the trust, 
without my concmTence. 

The next notice I had, respecting the progress of affairs, 
was from Judge Warren, in his letter of December 19, to 
the effect that the business was all happily concluded; and, 
without inquiring when, where, or how, I supposed that it 
might have been transacted, as such business then very com- 
monly was, in a private audience, before the judge of pro- 
bate, at some time convenient to himself and the parties, in 
lieu of a formal hearing on a regular court day ; and that no 
release in behalf of the Kirk Boott family had been found 
necessary to the passage of the executor's account, which 
was all I cared about in the matter. 

The reader now has the facts before him, and I have but 
few remarks to make upon the character of the " Reply" to 
this part of my case. 

That my name was signed, in the manner above stated, 
without my consent or knowledge, and for the purpose of 
passing the account, Mr. Lowell does not deny. How, then, 
does he get over the fact ? To most men this would seem 
no easy task ; — but Mr. Lowell makes very light of it. He 
even affects to turn my complaint into ridicule, as a mere freak 
of captiousness, quite without excuse. " Why," says Mr. 
Lowell, in effect, ^' did I not Avrite a letter to Mr. Brooks on 
the tenth of December, of which I shoiv to the reader the 
first sentence, — a sentence declaring my great and disinter- 
ested love of the whole Boott family, and my sincere desire 
to heal their dissensions, — and the residue of which letter, I 
assure the reader, contained my proposition for a compromise ? 
And did not Mr. Brooks write me an answer, which I show 
to the reader in full, and in which there is ' not one word, 
be it observed, about any reluctance to consent to this ar- 
rangement as joint trustee ivith me under the will of Mr. 
Kirk Boott?' "This [signing of his name] I 7iever doubted 
that I was fully authorized to do by Mr Brooks's note 
above cited " ! ! 



656 



Now, what possible authority, I ask, in the name of truth, 
could Mr. Lowell have imagined to have been thereby con- 
veyed to him to sign for me, a paper not alluded to either 
in his letter or mine? — a paper, too, which I had myself 
already signed as I mjeant to sign it, and which I had pur- 
posely omitted to sign as trustee for others, with express no- 
tice to him of my intention in that behalf ? If Mr. Lowell 
really believed that such an authority was conveyed hy my 
assent to his letter , why did he print my letter only as the 
evidence of that assent, and omit to print his own letter, (ex- 
cept one immaterial sentence,) thereby precluding the reader 
from seeing for himself what was the proposition assented to, 
and leading him to infer from the whole statement, that the 
tenor of his proposal was totally different from any thing, 
which the letter actually contains, or suggests ? 

However, this letter of mine, connected with his, is Mr. 
Lowell's sole alleged authority, such as it is ; and in virtue 
of that authority he takes the paper, whensoever it may have 
come to his possession, carries it to Cambridge, procures the 
additional signatures of Mr. and Mrs. Wells, and then, with- 
out notice to me, signs it himself, not only for himself as one 
of the trustees, but, expressly, for Edward Brooks also, as 
the other trustee, under the will of Kirk Boott, being, as he 
says, '' in the usual form of such signature," [L. p. 192.] 
and all standing, apparently, under the attestation of my own 
servant, Hugh Mathews. 

" The usual form of such signature I"*^ Well, — that may 
be true enough. No one better understands the forms of 
business than Mr. Lowell. I presume that, whenever one 
man writes another's name without authority, he takes 
care to do it in what he supposes to be the " usual form of 
such signature." I have never made the slightest objection 
to the form, in which Mr. Lowell signed my name. The 
only complaint in the world, I have to make, is, that he 
should have signed it at all, without my consent given or 
asked, without authority express or implied, and that he 
should have done it secretly, without my knowledge at the 



657 



time, and without communicating it to me afterwards, and 
altogether against my known will on that subject, and that 
he should presume to treat the fact, when discovered, as a 
matter of no moment. 

Let us see how Mr. Lowell deals with so grave a charge. 
As indisputable evidence of my dissent, at the time, to all 
action in my name, as trustee, for others, in this voluntary 
release of claims, I formerly printed my letter of December 
17, 1844, now reprinted above. This Mr. Lowell admits he 
received, but affects to treat with extreme contempt, and to 
turn the circumstance of the date of the letter against me, as 
if it made the matter merely ridiculous ; — for I have invaria- 
bly observed of Mr. Lowell, in all the dealings I have ever had 
with him, that he assumes a tone, confident, presumptuous, 
and overbearing, just in proportion to the badness of his 
cause. Accordingly, we find him, now, using the following 
language. " He [Mr. Brooks] now pretends that this letter 
of December 17, was a seasonable notice not to sign on his 
behalf a release, which was exhibited at the probate court, 
signed hy all tJie parties interested, on the 16th ! This con- 
tempt for chronology is, as I have already had occasion to 
show, characteristic of Mr. Brooks^ s mind.^^ [L. p. 193.] 
Now observe the exact phraseology here, because it betrays 
something, which I consider very characteristic of Mr. Low- 
ell's mind. Without once alluding to the previous conver- 
sations I had held with him to the same effect, he gives out, 
by indirection, that my case of notice rests, solely., on that let- 
ter of December 17. Having tacitly assumed that absolute 
falsehood, he says, '^ the release was exhibited at the pro- 
bate court, signed by all the parties interested, on the 16th" — 
— one day before the date of my letter. This may be all 
true, — except that I deny that my signature, as one of the 
trustees under the will of the late Kirk Boott, is upon that 
paper at all, — and if true, it would seem, at first blush, 
to all persons ignorant of the circumstances, to be a pretty 
decisive answer. Every reader, who sees that statement 
without further explanation, naturally says to himself, — " If 

83 



658 



the paper was really exhibited, in open court, the day before 
the date of Mr. Brooks's letter, Mr. Brooks must have had 
notice of it ; for he must have been present, by himself or his 
counsel, and should have objected at the time, instead of 
writing a letter the next day^ and endeavouring to do away 
the effect of what had been done by offering to resign hig 
trust." 

I have already proved that this idea is unfounded in fact ; 
but, since it may not be so well known to every reader, as 
it is to those who have business in our courts, it may be proper 
to add, that, when a settlement is agreed upon out of court, 
nothing is more common than for all the papers to be handed 
to the counsel, or agent, of one of the parties, to be exhibited 
and filed when it shall suit his convenience, provided he 
be a person, in whom implicit confidence may be reposed 
that every thing will be rightly done, according to the 
agreement. This it was, which happened here. The compro- 
mise had been agreed upon ; several papers were yet to be 
prepared and executed, to carry it into full effect ; this paper, 
already signed by some, was put into Mr. Lowell's hands that 
he might obtain the signature of others ; and all the papers 
were left with him, by me and by my counsel, as we should 
have left them in the hands of any respectable man, occupy- 
ing the position of Mr. Lowell, and believed to be an accurate 
man of business, in perfect security that the right use, and 
no other, would be made of them at the right time and no 
other. 

The deed of the mansion-house, — the most pressing step in 
the whole business for Mr. Boott and Mr. Lowell, — was not 
sent to Mr. Lowell, executed, as appears by my letter, till 
the morning of the seventeenth. The transfer of the prop- 
erty to the new trustee, — the only step material to my side 
of the compromise, — Avas not made certainly before the 
twenty-first, nor was the business completed in the probate 
court till the twenty-third. Not, until that day, was the final 
account presented by Mr. Boott, without which the business 
Gould not be regularly closed. In such a matter nothing was 



659 



done till all was done. The releases, in particular, were to 
take effect ivlien the transfer of property occurred, or, at the 
instant before, when the accounts were to be passed, and 
the property was, thereupon, to change hands. All this prep- 
aration was, at the date of my letter, supposed to be yet in pro- 
gress. 

But what does Mr. Lowell ? Immediately upon the agree- 
ment's being made, and before it was p>ossihle that it should 
be executed for want of needful preparation, having the half- 
signed release in his hand, he completes it in the manner 
above described, without notice to me ; and then, without 
waiting for other indispensable parts of the transaction to be 
in readiness, w that the property might he transferred, he 
hastens, with the release, so signed, to the first probate court, 
in the company of Mr. Boott alone, — informs the judge that 
the p)arties have agreed to the settlement of that pending ac- 
count, — exhibits this release, and the other releases, in proof, — - 
obtains a decree allowing the account on the faith of that 
statement and evidence, — and then takes away the releases 
^gain, to keep them in his own pocket until the other pre- 
parations can be made at leisure, and until the business can 
be finished at some subsequent probate court, so that the 
settlement of accounts may be beyond all danger of defeat, 
and the manner, in which it was effected, beyond all prob- 
ability of discovery. 

In the mean time, I, confiding in Mr. Lowell, and in the 
regular progress of the thing towards completion, had given 
myself no further thought about the matter. I had no notice 
of the movement in the probate court ; no opportunity to be 
present ; neither had my counsel. For myself, indeed, I 
never knew that Mr. Boott's account had been passed on the 
sixteenth, until I observed that to be the date of the pro- 
bate record, when preparing my former pamphlet ; and, al- 
though I then thought it strange that the account should 
have been actually ^asseo? on that day, when the surrender 
of the property to the new trustee did not appear to have 
been made till several days afterwards, nor the subsequent 



660 



account to have been passed till the iwenty-tJiird^ while 
Judge Warren's letter, telling me that the business was ac- 
tually finished, appeared to be dated on the nineteenth^ still, 
suspecting no wrong, I thought nothing of these discrepan- 
cies, though I could not account for them, until I discovered 
this extraordinary fact concerning the signature to the release. 

But my letter of the seventeenth was not my first ?iotice 
to Mr. Lowell of my refusal to join in a release as trustee. 
That I have abundantly shown, not only by my own state- 
ment, but by Mr. Lowell's tacit admission. Mr. Lowell well 
knew my objection before the sixteenth. On that day, he 
sent me the deed of the house, to be signed by myself and 
Mrs. Brooks and Mr. William Boott ; and, on returning it, 
signed, on the morning of the seventeenth, I, very naturally, 
took the occasion to repeat, more formally, the grounds of my 
objection to acting in this business, in my capacity of trus- 
tee ; but, that I might not thereby stand in the way of the 
settlement, nor thwart Mr. Lowell's known desire that all con- 
cerned should join in a release, I offered and proposed, if he 
were content to take the responsibility of acting for the 
Kirk Boott family entirely upon himself, to resign my trust. 
What follows ? Mr. Lowell comes to see me, and brings with 
him a draft of a deed, representing it to be the identical pa- 
per, requiring the signatures of himself and myself as co- 
trustees, to which he had, in our former conversation, referred. 
I insist on my objection to signing as trustee. He asks me 
to read the paper. I do so, and find it to be a mere deed 
of conveyance to Mr. Lawrence of our interest, as trustees? 
in the mansion-house, without a release, express or implied, 
of any claim on Mr. Boott. I give him to understand that I 
have no objection to signing that deed, considering the sale 
a fair one, and that the proceeds would go into safe hands, 
but again repeat that I can not, and will not, agree to sign, 
in that capacity, any release of claims on Mr. Boott. To 
this Mr. Lowell, saying nothing of what had happened, sim- 
ply replies, — " It will not be necessary ! !" 

Little did I dream, when he told me this in his most artless 



661 



manner, that he was only saying, in effect, — " You need not 
trouble yourself, my dear Sir, about signing, or not signing, 
any such paper as that, — because / have already done it for 
you'\' I understood him, of course, literally, as he meant I 
should understand, that no act of the trustees was judged to 
be needful. 

And now, having seen what all the facts are, — none of 
them really denied by Mr. Lowell, — let us take the best side 
of his own story. 

His substantial plea comes to this : That he signed the re- 
lease for me in good faith, and " in the usual form of such sig- 
nature," supposing that I wished or expected him to do so, as 
a matter of course. And yet, is it not wonderful, if he was so 
perfectly sure of my consent, that he should not have preferred 
to get my own name, so easily done, to a paper so very 
important as this proves to have been for himself personally? 
Am I not justified in saying that it was important to him, 
personally, after all we have seen about the connexion of 
Boott & Lowell with the subject matter of this account ? 
to say nothing of its securing full payment of a debt due 
to himself, for large sums of money lent, as trustee, upon 
questionable security. 

But we will suppose that he did so sign it for me, hon- 
estly and in good faith, and that he carried it into the pro- 
bate court, on the sixteenth day of December, not dreaming 
that I could have the least objection to releasing, as trustee, 
claims similar to those, which I had consented to release 
for myself personally. On the very next day^ he gets a note 
from me, about which there can he no misapprehension, positively 
declining to sign any such paper in that capacity. Supposing, 
I say, that his intentions were all fair and open, and that he 
had acted under a mere mistake, what should he have done 
on the receipt of such a note? Would not any other gen- 
tleman of his standing and reputation have come, or writ- 
ten, to me, immediately, and said, '• I am truly sorry for 
what has happened ; I have already put your name as trus- 
tee to that release, presuming you had authorized me to do 



662 



so, or at least that you would have no objection. Meaning 
to be prompt in this matter, I carried it, yesterday, to the 
judge of probate, and the executor's account was, unfortu- 
nately, passed, upon the faith of it. Bat this, after all, is 
rather a matter of form ; the decree has not yet been record- 
ed ; the release has not been filed ; the property, I am hap- 
py to say, has not been delivered, and other needful parts 
of the arrangement are still incomplete ; so that a mistake, 
in this hasty proceeding, is yet entirely open to be corrected ; 
and I am now ready to do whatever you may require, to set 
matters right." 

T ask every fair-minded man if such would not have been 
his own course ? But, what does Mr. Lowell ? He pockets 
my letter, — says nothing in reply, — keeps close, — 'runs for 
luck, — counting upon my confidence in him, and upon the im- 
probability of my searching the records of the probate office, 
and upon the greater improbability of my calling for absent 
papers, — -breathes not a syllable of his having put my name 
to the release, nor of his having thereby got the account al- 
ready passed, — ^but, on the contrary, brings me another pa^ 
per to sign as trustee, to which I see no objection, — ^and, 
when I remind him that I cannot sign a release as trustee, 
merely says, "Oh, that will not be necessary ! " — and leaves 
me to find out, three year 8 and a half after ^ that he had ac- 
tually done for me that, which I had expressly declared, 
both verbally and in writing, my fixed determination that 
I would never do. Thus, in spite of every precaution, I 
stand recorded in the probate office, apparently assenting to 
a release of claims, held only in trust, by Mr. Lowell's sig- 
nature in my behalf, written, as it seems by the paper, in the 
presence of my own house-servant, directly under my own 
personal signature, and witnessed by him. 

On making the discovery, I write to Mr. Lowell for an 
explanation. This he treats with " silent contempt," re- 
fusing all answer upon the subject till he is dragged out, be- 
fore the readers of my pamphlet, in print ; and then, he has 
the consummate assurance to publish an answer holding up 



663 



the whole affair to general ridicule, upon the ground of its 
being a mere foolish mistake of mine, — a silly anachron- 
ism, — because, forsooth, my letter, repeating a verbal notice 
of several days before, was dated on the seventeenth, and 
he had, without notice to me, procured the account to be 
passed on the sixteenth ! 

What such a release, and such a passing of an account, 
may be good for, I shall not, at this moment, undertake 
to determine ; but I desire to publish to all who read these 
pages, that my present judgement, respecting the propriety 
of my joining in that release as trustee^ is, still, what it 
then was; that, if the matter were to do over again, I 
should refuse, now, as I did then, to be a party to any such 
act ; and, further, I desire to publish, that this signature, 
affixed hy 3Ir. Lowell, and purporting to be affixed for me, 
is NOT MY SIGNATURE, fiov evidence of my assent, in any sense 
of the term, and ivas never authorized by me, expressly 
or impliedly, a7id that Mr. Loioell knew it was not when 
he so signed ; — -and, there I leave it. 

One word of explanation, however, as to my own course, 
seems needful. 

Mr. Lowell, in addition to the imputed anachronism, in- 
dulges himself in some further pleasantry, as follows : — 

" I will not dwell on the absurdity of a trustee allowing accounts 
that he believes to be fictitious to be passed, no one appearing to ob- 
ject to them, and the next day refusing on the plea of conscience to 
sign merely pro foj'7na discharges." [Ante, p, 627.] 

The ideas of the " Reply," concerning form and substance 
in the execution of a trust, are so different from mine, that I 
shall not stop to discuss them. But, in respect to my imputed 
neglect of duty, in allowing the account to be passed without 
interposing a positive objection, in behalf of my trust, it 
might be answer enough to show, as I have, that the fact of 
its passage, at that tinie^ and in that manner, was concealer" 
from me by Mr. Lowell until the deed ivas done. It was don 
while I supposed preparation teas yet making for doing it 



664 



with full opportunity for all parties to object, who had not 
already agreed to the settlement. But further, I would re- 
mark, that an allowance of the account by a judge of pro- 
bate, upon his judicial responsibility, was one thing ; a vol- 
untary release of claims on the executor for all matters, wheth- 
er in the account or out of it, by a party interested, was 
quite another. The question is, whether I ought to have 
joined, as trustee, in such a release. Reason enough against 
it, has, I trust, been made to appear. T did not, indeed, then 
know all, which I know now ; but I knew, well enough, 
or, at least, had reason enough to believe, that Mr. J. Wright 
Boott was, in equity, largely indebted to his father's estate ; 
in other words, that he had received more of that estate than 
the account charged him with ; how much more I did not 
know. I believed, also, it is true, that Mr. Kirk Boott had 
been allowed $20,000, as the dividend due to him from the 
estate. But I did not positively know that ; nor did I know 
that a much larger sum was not really due to him. What 
the effect might be of former transactions, including the dis- 
charge of 1833, to which Mr. Kirk Boott was a party, if all 
the real facts of the case should be discovered, and what 
the effect of a decree allowing an account, which entirely 
omits to charge the accounting party with certain sums, not 
mentioned, nor referred to, in it, — all this it was not my prov- 
ince to assume to determine for any body but myself. For 
the sake of quieting dissensions, of effecting a settlement im- 
portant to the peace of the family, and of securing, at the 
same time, the safety of a remnant of family property, I was 
willing to compromise, for myself, by the most formal and 
effectual release that counsel could devise, all claims against 
Mr. Boott, belonging to me in my wife's right, and she was 
willing to join me in that act. I was not willing, and, in- 
deed, had no right, in my own judgement, to yield up, in 
the dark J any claim, legal or equitable, that might remain 
to the minors, for whom I was a trustee. I preferred to re- 
sign the trust, and leave that responsibility to others, if they 
chose to assume it. 



665 



What would Mr. Lowell have said, had I signed the 
release as trustee ? Even now, he says there was no com- 
promise. But with how much more colour of plausibility 
would he have said so then ? How would he have borne 
down upon me in that case ? " See," he would have said, 
''the consistency and fairness of this Mr. Brooks. He pre- 
tends that the allowance of the account, was a compromise ; 
and, yet, he signed 3. full release of all claims, not merely 
for himself, but as trustee^ and in behalf of others, some of 
them minors^ whose claims, if they had any, he knew he 
had no right to abandon, or to surrender without the small- 
est pecuniary consideration." 

What could I have answered to this ? I should have had 
no more to say for myself than Mr. Lowell has to say for 
himself, in having usurped that office, and in having under- 
taken to sign my name, secretly, to a release, which, it now 
appears, was to accrue in part to his own benefit, — thus, not 
only violating his faith to me as a co-trustee, but his duties, 
irfmy judgement, to the wards, whose interests, we were equal- 
ly bound to protect. 

For my part, I saw no course, for me, but to resign my 
trust, if such a release was to be required. Would that have 
been a culpable dereliction of duty ? Perhaps I might have 
been blameable for a weakness, even in that. But, the case 
was, that my co-trustee, professing a knowledge^ (as I shall 
presently prove,) upon the subject of the old partnership 
transactions and family accounts, which I did not pretend 
to possess, and declaring a confidence^ which I could not 
feel, in the truth of the executor's account, was urging 
me to adopt it. He was willing, apparently, to take 
the responsibility of signing off for every body ; and sev- 
eral of the family of the late Mr. Kirk Boott, influenced 
by Mr. Lowell's views and representations, were actually 
desirous that the release should be given, and the account 
passed. What would have been said, then, if, after agree- 
ing to a compromise for myself, I had, nevertheless, insisted, 
under such circumstances, on fighting out the battle for them, 



666 



against their ivill, and against the will of my co-trustee ? 
And what, if I had thereby defeated the proposed family set- 
tlement, and prevented the restoration of the proffered peace ? 
The dilemma was such, that I saw nothing left for me but 
to resign. I so notified to Mr. Lowell, at first verbally, and, 
again, in my letter of the seventeenth ; and I should cer- 
tainly have so resigned, but for his comforting assurance, 
that a release of their claims would "not be necessary." The 
reader may judge, then, whether I acted, in this matter, 
either as a wanton disturber of the family peace, or as a 
party unmindful of my duties as a trustee, — both of which 
violations of duty I am charged with by Mr. Lowell ; — and 
he may also judge, for himself, what the motives were, upon 
which Mr. Lowell acted, throughout this business, and what 
his motive is in publishing a '' Reply," of which but a small 
part of the falsehood has, as yet, been exposed. 



CHAPTEE LXI. 



The narrative, upon points connected with the accounts, 
and with the question of Mr. Boott's conduct as an executor, 
is now brought up to the time of the final settlement in the 
probate office, December 23, 1844. Thence to the time of 
the inquest, March 7, 1845, whatever occurred, worthy of 
narration, relates to the separate question of Mr. Boott's san- 
ity, with the exception of certain matters entirely personal 
between me and Mr. Lowell. These I propose now to lay 
before the reader. 

Very soon after the compromise arrangements had all been 



667 



carried into effect, a conversation occurred between us. We 
mutually expressed our gratification at what seemed to be a 
happy conclusion of a business, Avhich, while 'it remained 
open, occasioned undue excitement in certain portions of the 
family. The change of trusteeship, it was thought, would 
remove all danger of collision, between Mr. Boott and any 
of his family, concerning pecuniary matters at least ; and 
it seemed that the harmony, amongst the other members of 
the family, which had been disturbed, of late, by the ques- 
tion of Mr. Boott's removal from his trust, might now be re- 
stored, if its restoration were promoted by a course of careful 
conduct on the part of those, who were best informed re- 
specting the business part of the transaction. We both 
agreed that the surest way, to effect this desirable object, was, 
for us to say nothing upon the recent subjects of difference^ 
but simply to give out that \yq had agreed upon a trustee, to 
whom all the property had been transferred, and that all 
questions about property and accounts were amicably settled. 
Mr. Lowell was particularly emphatic on this point, and said, 
at parting, " Whatever you may hear about it hereafter, you 
may rest assured that it does not come from me." 

Within three days, I heard, from what seemed to me good 
authority, that certain friends of the family were told by 
Mr. Lowell^ just after our conversation, that '■^Wright Boott 
had come out triumphantly ; that the idea of any misman- 
agement^ or loss of property, was completely abandoned by 
Brooks and William Boott ; that his accounts were found 
to be entirely correct, and showed a large balance due to him, 
which was agreed to.''^ 

This breach of the spirit of our agreement was extremely 
vexatious ; and the more so, because I could not bring it home 
to Mr. Lowell, without involving friends, who did not wish 
to be quoted. I told him, however, in general terms, what 
I had heard, without naming my authority. He did not deny 
the fact, but affected to consider that what he had said did 
not amount to a breach of our agreement, and assured me 
that he should be more cautious in future. I heard other 



m 



rumours, notwithstanding, at other times, to the like effecl, as 
coming from Mr. Lowell ; but never in a shape to be authen- 
tically traced to their source, and, after all he had said, I was 
not willing to believe that they originated with him ; nor did 
I deem them of very serious importance, until they came to 
be connected with the question of the cause of Mr. Boott'& 
death. Even then, I did not venture to attribute what I 
heard to Mr. Lowell, so positively as to call for explanation, 
imtil I learned, a year and a half after the coroner's inquest, 
what the information was, which he had given to the jurors j 
and then I thought it high time for me to move, as I did. 

A few weeks after the settlement, an accidental conversa- 
tion occurred between Mr. Lowell and Mr. William Boott^ 
also, the substance of which Mr. William Boott mentioned 
to me. It led to a brief, but friendly correspondence, which 
I have before adverted to. [Ante, pp. 225, 487.] The cor- 
respondence speaks best for itself. 

LETTER FKOM E. BROOKS to J. A. LOWELL. 

January 31, 1845. 
Dear Sir, 

I learn from Mr. William Boott that yoia have in yoor possession 
a letter from Mr. Kirk Boott, of Lowell, in which he says that, at a 
meeting between himself, myself, and one or more other persons, it 
was agreed, with my assent, that Mr. John W. Boott was justified in 
placing his mother's property in the Mill Dam Foundry. If Mr. 
Boott has understood you correctly, may I ask the favour of you to 
allow me to see that letter. Yours very truly, 

Edward Brooks. 
At Mr. Brooks's request, I state that the above information is cor- 
rect, as far as I understood Mr. Lowell in conversation yesterday. 

W. Boott. 

LETTER FROM J. A. LOWELL to E. BROOKS. 

Dear Sir: 

My statement to Mr. William Boott, was, that I had seen a letter from 
Mr. Kirk Boott, of Lowell, in which he says, in substance, that at a 
meeting between himself and yourself and one or two other per- 
sons, it was agy-eed, with your assent, that Mr. J. W. Boott was jus- 
tified in using some portion of the funds, in his hands as executor, in 
business at the Mill Dam Foundery. 

That letter never was, except for a few hours, in my possession, 



669 



and I took no copy of it. I will try to procure a copy of it, or the 
original, for your inspection. Yours very truly, 

J. A. Lowell. 
Jan. 31, 1845. 

LETTER FROM. J. A. LOWELL to E. BROOKS. 

Boston, Jan. 31, 1845. 
Deak Sir : 

The following is an extract from a letter from Kirk Boott, Esq. 
of Lowell. 

^* Sunday evening* 
*'My Dear Wright : 

"I intended to have had some conversation v/ith you before my re- 
turn home, but was too jaded, last evening, to attempt it. 

"After leaving you, yesterday morning, I went to E. B.'s office, 
where Ralston, soon after, joined us. 

" They both exonerate you from any selfish views in the manage- 
ment of the property, and, admitting your undeviating economy, con- 
sider you have sacrificed yourself to the desire of helping others. 

" By the provisions of the will you were authorized to use the 
estate in business, — and, while there is not, on any side, a shadow of 
suspicion that you have heedlessly squandered it, there can be no 
imputation on your honor or integrity, though it be in your hands 
greatly diminished. But this will not apply to F.'s children. We 
are therefore of opinion that they must be paid in full, at all events, 
and effected as soon as possible." 

This is all the letter contains on this subject. You will remember 
that, by a settlement afterwards made with Lyman and Ralston, Mr. 
Boott was exonerated from all the debts of the Mill Dam, Founder y, 
and, of course, the fund was not diminished, as Mr. K. Boott seems to 
have feared it might be. 

Mr. Robert Ralston, in a note en tho nnrae subject, says : — " I can 
most fully confirm the statement in Kirk's note. No one, at that 
time, or during the whole negotiation subsequent thereto, ever im- 
peached your honor or integrity, or doubted that, by your father's 
will, you were at full liberty to employ the capital in your hands in 
business. I well remember that it was the opinion of Mr. Brooks, 
your brother Kirk and myself, that you had acted always in a most 
disinterested manner, sacrificing yourself for others." 

I am yours, very truly, 

J. A. Lowell. 

I do not mean to take up time with comments on this cor- 
respondence, (which is not noticed in the '' Reply,") further 
than to point out the total failure of the authority, cited by- 
Mr. Lowell, to support his position, that I had ever agreed that 



670 



Mr. Boott was justified in placing his mother'' s property, or 
any property, held hy him as executor, in the Mill Dam Foun- 
dry. It was true, only, that the will allowed him, after 
forming the particular trust funds, to lend the remaining 
shares of the m^inor children, to be used in one particular 
business, hy one particular firm, if it should be established; 
but not by such a firm, or in such a business, as that of 
Messrs. Boott, Lyman & Ralston, at the foundry. For fur- 
^ ther explanations on this point, I refer to my former remarks. 
[B. pp. 130 to 136.] 

It was, I believe, about the time of this conversation, in 
January, 1845, that I learned from Mr. Lowell, incidentally, 
that a part of Mrs. Boott's income had been taken to 
make up the apparent sum in the hands of the new trus- 
tee. My former remarks on this subject are held out as 
quite ludicrous in the ^' Reply," and are there connected, by 
juxtaposition, with the very serious subject treated of in the 
last chapter. The shaft of wit, so shot for the reader's en- 
tertainment, and obviously to turn off his attention from 
graver matters, is hardly worth the picking up ; but there are 
facts of some importance, connected with this part of the 
case, which the reader ought to know ,• and, for the purpose 
of stating them, I insert what Mr. Lowell says : — 

" Another anachronism, precisely similar in its nature to the one 
just commented upon, occurs on page 123d of Mr. Brooks's pamphlet. 

" I had understood the final agreement for the passage of Mr. Boott's 
accounts to be based upon a proposition previously made to me by 
Judge Warren, that so much of a dividend of the Merrimack Compa- 
ny, just declared, should be retained by the trustee as capital, as 
should be found necessary, upon appraisement of the stocks, to make 
good the original amount of the trust funds, namely, S100,000. The 
sum of S4500 45 v^as retained accordingly. 

" It appears that Mr. Brooks and Mr. William Boott did not wish 
to insist on that condition, and addressed a joint note to Mr. Loring, 
requesting him to consider the whole of that dividend as income, and 
to pay it, as such, to Mrs. Boott. ' Whether this lias been done or 
not,' says Mr. Brooks, ' we have not been informed ; but 1 infer oth- 
erwise from the fact, that a new paper, designed apparently to ratify 
the actual settlement, seems to have been sent out to London, I pre- 
sume by Mr. Lowell, immediately after the settlement was completed, 



671 



and to have been signed there, February 1, 1845, by Mrs. Boott, Dr. 
Francis Boott, and Mr. James Boott.' 

" The joint note of Mr. Brooks and Mr. William Boott to Mr. Bo- 
ring (App. p. 57) bears date February 3, 1845 ; so that, in plain 
English, it amounts to this, that Mr. Brooks considers a release exe- 
cuted in London on the 1st of February 1845, as warranting the 
inference that we were unwilling to comply with a request made in 
this country two days afterwards I I wonder that he did not charac- 
terize our reluctance as obstinate and protracted." [L. p. 193-5.] 

The fact, which I stated, respecting Mr. Lowell's having 
obtained a second release from Mrs. Boott, after the settle- 
ment, and the purpose, for which I said it was obtained, it 
will be observed, are, here, tacitly admitted by the " Reply." 

I have further to remark, that, if Judge Warren ever pro- 
posed that the capital of Mrs. Boott's trust fund should be 
made good, or apparently good, out of her own income, he 
did so without any authority from me ; and, having no other 
evidence of it than this statement of the " Reply," unsup- 
ported by Judge Warren's own account of his proposal, I dis- 
believe the fact. 

The accounts, however, were settled, in reality, though 
not in ostensible form, upon that false basis. That is to say, 
the account of November 18, even upon the incorrect valua- 
tion it assumes of the property on hand, exhibited only 
$96,000 and a fraction, instead of ^100,000, for the invest- 
ment of Mrs. Boott's trust fund. Between that time and the 
settlement of the final account of December 23, Mr. Boott 
received from the manufacturing stock $7100 of income, 
which, after passing over the shares to his successor, was 
left in his hands, expressly, as ''Income received on account 
of Mrs. Boott, and to be paid to her or for her account.^'' 
[B. App. p. 53.] But, when the inventory of the new trustee' 
came to be made up, it was thought desirable, by Mr. Lowell, 
to make, if possible, a show of $146,000 of property in the 
hands of the new trustee, (that is, $100,000 for the trust 
fund, and $46,000 for the proceeds of the mansion-house,) 
notwithstanding that $26,000 was taken out for the payment 
of his debt. 



672 



The high price of manufacturing stock, at that time, facil- 
itated the execution of this idea. The seventy-one shares of 
Merrimack, which had cost Mr. Boott only par, and had 
sometimes been worth much less than par, were appraised at 
twenty-eight per cent, advance. But, notwithstanding this 
fortunate circumstance, the whole property, (exclusive of 
the mansion-house,) charged in the executor's accounts at 
$121,500, could only be brought up, by the new appraise- 
ment, to $120,655; against which stood the cash balance 
of f 25,215 45, claimed by the executor. This cash balance 
being taken out of the proceeds of the mansion-house, 
($46,000,) there was left, from this source, $20,784 5o, to be 
added to the appraised value of the stocks and the stable. 
But this would bring up the sum total of property, in the 
hands of the new trustee, even with the aid of this high 
appraisement, to no more than $141,439 55. Of course, to 
make up an exhibit of $146,000, and enable Mr. Lowell to 
represent to the family that Mrs. Boott's trust fund, and the 
proceeds of the mansion-house, were all whole, it was needful 
that a further sum of $4560 45 should be paid to the new 
trustee. Such a sum is, accordingly, inventoried by the new 
trustee as '' Cash received from John W. Boott." [B. App. p. 
55.'] But whence could it be taken ? Not out of the execu- 
tor's ''cash balance," for that was to go to Mr. Lowell. But 
it might be taken, and was taken, out of the ^7100 of " In- 
come received on account of Mrs. Boott, and to be paid to 
her., or for her account .'" 

This source of the payment is not stated on the face of the 
probate paper; — it appears, there^ as if the $4560 45 was a 
mere gratuity from Mr. Boott, who, according to his ac- 
counts, had already paid over all that he oiued, except the 
$7100, and that was retained, ostensibly, /or his mother, being 
her admitted property. But Mr. Lowell, it will be perceived, 
in the extract above made from his pamphlet, admits, that this 
$4560 45 was, in fact, taken out of that $7100, and he charges 
the taking of it upon Judge Warren, as a thing proposed 
by him. No such fact is stated by Judge Warren, in his let- 



673 



ter of December 19, 1844, written when he erroneously sup- 
posed the whole settlement finished, and written for no other 
purpose than to inform me, fully, of the terms of the set- 
tlement. [Ante, p. 139.] 

Thus, Mrs. Booths income was made, without her consent 
or knowledge, to aid the high market prices of the day, in 
completing, nominally, the capital of her own trust fund ^ by 
a contribution of $4560 45, to be added to the $65,000, or 
thereabouts, which had been subtracted from her income 
in former years, for the payment of Mr. Boott's other debts. 
[Ante, Ch. 43.] This was done, also, without the consent or 
knowledge of Mr. William Boott, or of myself We learn- 
ed the fact, casually, from Mr. Lowell, about the time 
above mentioned. Such a mode of settlement was entirely 
contrary to our expectation, and entirely contrary to our 
views of propriety ; since it was taking property froTU Mrs. 
Boott, for the benefit of ourselves^ and the other reversioners 
of the trust fund. We understood, however, that Mr. Low- 
ell spoke of the transaction as a thing done hy our desire. 
Consequently, we addressed the following note to Mr. Lo- 
ring :-^ 

LETTER FROM E. BROOKS and W. BOOTT to C. G. LORING. 

Boston, 3d February, 1845. 
C. G. LoRiNG, Esq., Trustee, &c. 

Dear Sir, — Having learned from Mr. Lowell that, owing to 
some misunderstanding as to the manner, in which we intended the 
trust fund, belonging to the estate of the late Mr. Kirk Boott, should 
be made good, the last dividend on the shares in the Merrimack 
Company has heen added to the fund as principal, we request you to 
consider this dividend as income^ and pay it, as such, to Mrs. Boott. 

We are, Dear Sir, 

Respectfully yours, 

Edward Brooks. 
William Boott. 

We never received any answer to this request. But, at the 
time of writing my former pamphlet, I had discovered that, 
immediately after the settlement of the final account, a new 

85 " 



674 



release of all claims on Mr. J. Wright Boott had been drawn 
up, here, for Mrs. Boott to execute, and had been executed 
by her at London, February 1, 184.5, and that this executed 
release had been, afterwards, filed in the probate office here. 
It was obvious that this must have been done under the idea, 
that her former release, of May 29, 1844, already on file, 
could cover only misappropriations of her income antecedent 
to its date, and would not embrace the particular misappro- 
priation made, by turning it into capital of the trust fund, in 
the settlement of December 23. The plain object of the new 
release was to cover that^ and any other misappropriations of 
her property, that may have occurred after May 29. The 
discovery of so deliberate a plan for this purpose, carried out 
by the filing of the release, and coupled with the fact that no 
answer was given to our request by Mr. Loring,led me, when 
writing my former pamphlet, to infer that the release, of Feb- 
ruary 1, 1845, was considered to be a complete subsequent 
ratification ^hy Mrs. Boott, of the actual settlement ; and that 
Mr. Loring's expectation of receiving that release, then on its 
way from London, was the cause of his omitting to answer 
our letter of February 3, 1845 ; since, if received, it would 
dispense with any call for action upon our request. The 
release must, of course, have been filed^ in the probate office, 
some days, or weeks, after our letter had been received ; and 
the act of filing it, indicated, of course, an intention to stand 
upon the legal effect of that paper, instead of refunding the 
money to Mrs. Boott. I accordingly stated, in the passage of 
my former pamphlet cited by Mr. Lowell, my further infer- 
ence, drawn from these premises, that our request had not 
been complied with. 

The fact, that the release was signed, in London, two days 
before our letter was written, in Boston, requesting Mr. Loring 
to pay that sum to Mrs. Boott, is the sole occasion of Mr. 
Lowell's sarcasm. He affects to consider my inference 
another instance of ''attributing an antecedent event to 
a subsequent cause." [L. p. 12.] My inference may have 
been right or wrong ; the premises may have been well or ill 



675 



stated; but, in what the anachronism consists, or where the 
folly is,— except in the " Reply," — I think the reader will be 
at a loss to discover. 

* One thing, however, I think, he will easily discover : — -That 
is, that the $4560 45 was t3.ken from Mrs, Boott, really, to 
pay Mr. Lowell. Mr. Boott could not consent to be dis- 
charged by the heirs without seeming to ha,ve accounted, in 
some way, for the principal of his mother's trust fund, so that, 
with the aid of her release, he might stand right, to all ap- 
pearance, on the probate record. This was equally impor- 
tant for Mr. Lowell ; since he had caused it to be understood, 
by most of the family, that Mrs. Boott 's trust fund was quite 
unimpaired^ under Mr. Boott's management. This I shall 
prove presently. But Mr. Lowell could not consent to forego 
any part of his own debt ; and it was not possible, for the 
want of means, to make up the nominal amount of the trust 
fund without leaving Mr. Lowell unpaid, to the extent of 
about $4500, except by taking that sum from the $7100, left 
in Mr. Boott's hands for his mother's account. That being 
the plain alternative, there seems to have been no hesita- 
tion how to choose. Indeed such appropriations of Mrs. 
Boott's income had ceased to be a novelty. 

The next occurrence, concerning Mr. Lowell's conduct 
towards me, was a conversation immediately preceding the 
inquest. I gave a full account of it in my former pamphlet. 
He has now made his answer, and that I propose next to 
consider. 



676 



CHAPTER LXII. 
MR. Lowell's conduct in relation to the inquest. Time 

OF HIS reception OF MR. BOOTt's LAST LETTER. 

The question, which I have discussed, of Mr. Boott's con- 
duct as an executor, and the question, still remaining, whether 
he was sane or not, are controversial matters, which, accord- 
ing to the *' Reply," I love to dwell upon, for the sake of 
indulging a malignant and cowardly spite against the mem-^ 
ory of an unhappy man, whom death has, long since, removed 
from this scene of contention. My present topics, on the 
other hand, relate, exclusively, to the conduct of Mr. Lowell. 
Here, at least, that gentleman can make no such mistake. 

I narrated, formerly, an interview, at which Mr. Lowell 
made me acquainted with the fact of Mr. Boott's suicide, 
then just discovered. His concealment from me, at that in- 
terview, of the letter received from Mr. Boott, said to have 
enclosed his will, if he had in truth then received it, and, if 
not, his omission to inform me of its subsequent reception, 
before the inquest, connected with his conduct at the inquest, 
and afterwards, and with the impressions conveyed to the 
jury, in my absence, and without notice, were principal sub- 
jects of my former complaint. 

To one question more importance seems to have been 
attached, by most readers, than by me ; namely, the precise 
time of the probable reception of that letter. I stated the 
conversation at the interview above mentioned, and that it 
began some fifteen or twenty minutes before two o'clock, 
and ended at the door of the coroner's office, to which I had 
conducted Mr. Lowell, '' about two o'clock, I think a little 
after." [B. p. 173.] Mr. Lowell himself says, "it was past 
two o'clock." [L. p. 16.] The conversation impresses every 
body as equivalent to an assertion, by Mr. Lowell, that he 
had, at that time, received no letter from the deceased. It 



677 



so impressed me ; and Mr. Lowell himself does not pretend 
to view its just effect otherwise. Indeed, he says, '' I [Mr. 
Lowell] told him that I had received no letter." [L. p. 16.] 
Mr. Lowell did not tell me that, in direct terms ; but what he 
told me would naturally lead to the inference. 

Now I do not pretend to disguise the fact, that, after all 
which had come to my knowledge at the time of the writing 
of my former pamphlet, I felt obliged to withdraw my confi- 
dence from any former indirect statement of Mr. Lowell, 
made, in any part of this case, while he had a point to carry, 
or when there was likely to be more in his mind than he 
wished to expose. Subsequent discoveries, — and especially 
the character of the " Reply,"^have not increased my confi- 
dence in his assertions, however positive, under such circum- 
stances, nor when necessary to maintain a position once taken, 
or useful to exculpate himself. 

The several statements, concerning the moment of the 
reception of that letter, all coming directly or indirectly from 
Mr. Lowell, were so various and conflicting, and the surround- 
ing circumstances of the inquest, and of Mr. Lowell's conduct 
in relation to it, were so unusual and strange, that, upon the 
single question, whether he had the letter in his pocket, or 
not, at the time of the conversation with me, ending at the 
door of the coroner's office, it was difficult to determine what 
the truth was. I was cautious, therefore, not to state any in*- 
ference on that point, — although my suspicion may have 
been apparent enough, — but to state only the conflicting evi- 
dence, leaving every reader to draw his own inference, with 
all the information I had to give him, and leaving Mr. Low- 
ell to explain the suspicious circumstances, if he could. I do 
not see. therefore, that I am culpably answerable for the infer- 
ence, to which a fair statement of the evidence may have 
led any reader, even if it should happen that new evidence, 
then unknown to me, be found sufficient to satisfy him that 
his former inference was erroneous. 

The several former statements, respecting the receipt of the 
letter, were as follows : — 



678 



The official account of the inquest reported Mr. Lowell as 
saying, that he received it " about two o'clock, through the 
post-office." [B. App. p. 59.] According to two of the jurors, 
who were examined, he said, " he had received it that morn-' 
ing,^^ one of them adding '^through the post-office.''^ [B. pp. 
29, 30.] According to another, he said, he had received it 
" that dayy [B. p. 29.] He told me, himself, at an interview 
after the inquest, that the letter was " brought to him, at his 
house, after he had parted from me." [B. p. 149.] 

The coroner, on the other hand, stated to Mr. Dexter, that 
" the letter was exhibited to him by Mr. Lowell, at the time 
Mr. Lowell had called upon him to procure an inquest." [B. 
p. 151.] The same witness stated to Mr. Loring, " that Mr. 
Lowell opened the letter in his presence ;" [B. p. 152.] and 
Mr. Loring, writing in Mr. Lowell's behalf, admitted that the 
letter was produced to the coroner, at the time when Mr. Low^ 
ell called on the coroner, '' to procure an inquest to be holden." 
[B. p. 173.] That time appeared, as I stated it, to be at, or 
a little after, two o'clock, and Mr. Lowell admits that it was 
past two when I left him entering the coroner's office. 

My summary of the evidence did not omit, however, to 
suggest the several contingencies, that might, possibly, recon- 
cile the apparent conflict, consistently with Mr. Lowell's not 
having the letter when I so left him. I concluded it thus : — > 

" But whether he received it, between the time of my leaving him 
at the coroner's door and the time of his first seeing the coroner, or 
had received it previously, or found it at his own house afterwards, 
and then went again to seek the coroner, is not in my view very ma- 
teriah He had, at any rate, given me the impression that the letter 
was not for Mm, when he stated that it was not known to whom it 
was addressed, without suggesting any reason why his own letters, 
through the post-office, should have failed to reach him before that 
hour of the day. I ask, then, whether, if he did receive the letter 
immediately after we separated, and that letter was found to contain 
a will, affecting my rights of property, in common with those of others 
in the family, it was not his duty, as a friend and a gentleman, before 
taking any further steps towards an inquest, which he did not intend 
should result in a verdict of insanity, to have given me immediate 
notice of the fact of his reception of such a letter, and such a will ? 
It may be very true that my own share of the pecuniary interest in- 



679 



volved was not so large as to have affected materially my course of 
action. But what right had Mr. Lowell to assume to judge of that 
for me ? — or to prevent my interposing, as I might think proper, 
in hehsi\f of others, whose interests were involved ? What right had 
he to act upon a notice of my desire not to be present at the inquest, 
when a material alteration had occurred, to his knowledge, in the 
state of facts, upon which that desire was expressed, without first giv- 
ing me notice of that change of circumstances, and of his oivn inten- 
tion to do what he could towards establishing the sanity of the testator, 
so far as it was to be affected by the result of an inquest ?" [B. pp. 
173-4] 

The point of my complaint, it will be perceived, therefore, 
was wide of the question whether he had the letter, when I 
left him at the coroner's door, or not. Yet, to that qiiestion, 
the ''Reply," chiefly, addresses itself, and states the fact to 
have been as follows : — 

" Mr. Brooks and myself proceeded together in search of a coroner ; 
but, as it was past two o'clock, and Mr. Brooks was naturally anxious 
to hasten home with the sad intelligence, he left me at the door of the 
building, in which the coroner's office is situated. I found that the 
coroner had gone to dinner ; and, on returning to my own house, I 
received the letter produced by me at the inquest, inclosing Mr. 
Boott's will, and notifying to me his intended self-destruction." [L. 
p. 16.] 

It is now proper that the reader should see the last state- 
ment on this subject from Mr. Lowell's witness, the coroner. 
It is contained in the following memorandum of a conversa- 
tion, heard by Mr. J. C. Adams, under circumstances hereto- 
fore explained. [Ante, p. 88.] 

MEMORANDUM OF A CONVERSATION, 

between Edward Brooks, Esq. and Sheriff Pratt, '^' in Mr. Bh office, 

this 13th day of April, 1848, 9 1-2 o'clock, A. M. 

Mr, Pratt said, — " I have never had a copy of your book. Mr. Low- 
ell sent me a copy of his, and called my attention to what you had 
said about me in your pamphlet — that you had been harsh and severe ; 
but I did not pay much attention to it." 

Mr. B. said, — " I have said that," &c. Mr. B. then got a copy and 
gave to Pratt, and opened it. '' What I say is about that letter, and 
Mr. Lowell's showing it to you. You can see it, — I thought you had 
a copy." 

* Mr. Pratt is a deputy sheriff, as well as a coroner. 



680 



Mr. Pratt. — " I have heard there was a trouble about that. I recol- 
lect that Mr. L. showed me the letter, when he came to my office about 
two o'clock, on the morning of the inquest. It is my impression that he 
showed me the letter the first time he saw me, — for he ma?/ have been 
at my office twice, — though I think, he called only once. He men- 
tioned his business, said that Mr. Wright Boott had committed sui- 
cide ; and that he (Mr. L.) had a letter from him, appointing him 
executor. He took out the letter and showed it to me. I am not cer- 
tain that he came to my office more than once, — am certain that he did 
not come more than once. He said, I have just taken a letter from 
the Post-Office. I did not tell Mr. Dexter, that he read the letter to 
me ; hut that he took the letter in his hand and showed it to me. This 
was hard on to two o'clock.^' 

Mr. Brooks said, that there was some contradiction about Mr. Low- 
ell's conduct at the inquest. 

Mr. Pratt said, — " I did not hear your name mentioned, or any thing 
said about your family matters. I did not know that you belonged to 
the family. There was a general conversation after the inquest. Mr. 
Lowell talked with the jury. 1 did not hear him say any thing against 
you. I said to the jury, that Mr. Lowell had a letter from the de- 
ceased ; and asked if they would like to see it. I asked Mr. Lowell 
if the letter contained any thing in relation to the cause of Mr. Boott's 
death, or that he thought was material or proper to be shown. He 
said it did not. I did not call for the letter. I said I should want 
one good physician on the jury. Mr. Lowell said Dr. Putnam is at 
the house, and will be a good man. I knew Dr. P., and mentioned 
his name to the officer, who summoned the jury. This was before Dr. 
Palmer was summoned. I did not know any thing about the matter. 
I said to the jury, if you don't find that Mr. Boott was insane, don't 
find any thing about it, — because if you find him insane, and he should 
be found sa.ne, it would be bad. Somebody, I don't know who, said 
there was no evidence of his insanity. Others said the contrary, and 
that no man would commit suicide who was not insane. Mrs, Ly- 
man swore strongly, and so did the servants."* 

John C. Adams. 

Although we have no explanation, in the '^ Reply," of the 
manner, in which the letter got to Mr. Lowell's house at that 
late hour of the day, the fact, that it was seen there, in his 
hands, at some short time after two o'clock, and that its seal 
was then, apparently, broken, in the presence of Dr. Jackson, 

=* These witnesses, according to the oflficial report, [B. App. 58.] merely testified 
to the effect that they had not discovered any thing in his appearance indicating 
insanity, — Mrs. Lyman adding, that she had never seen her brother, during the 
year that she had Uved in the house with him. This was erased from the report, 
at her request. 



681 



is vouched by a letter from that gentleman ; and it is needless 
to say, that, in his statement of matters, which he believes 
himself to have personally witnessed, I place as implicit con- 
fidence as I should in those of any gentleman of equally high 
character and known accuracy, who is writing nearly three 
years after an occurrence, described with so much particu- 
larity of minute detail, in circumstances, very insignificant at 
the time, but which the question at issue had made import- 
ant, when he was called upon, by Mr. Lowell, to see what he 
could recollect, that might be of service. It is due to Mr. 
Lowell that the reader should see the whale of this letter, 
which I take from the '' Reply." [L. p. 18.] 

LETTER FROM Dr. JACKSON. 

Dear Sir, 

In reference to the letter, written to you by the late Mr. Wright 
Boott, on the evening before his death, I remember certain things very 
distinctly, which I will state. 

I went with you to Mr. Boott's residence on the day after his 
death, between twelve and one o'clock, in consequence of a note to 
you from Mrs. Lyman, written, very obviously, under great agitation, 
asking you to go to Mr. Boott's, and to take me with you. 

When arrived there, we found Mr. Boott dead, and obviously by 
his own hand. Mrs. Lyman related to us the circumstances, she knew, 
respecting her brother's movements the preceding evening. From 
these it seemed certain, that he had written one or more letters on 
that evening, and had gone out at a late hour, and after a short time 
had returned, and gone to his bed-chamber. The inference was, that 
he went abroad to deposit his letter, or letters, in the post-office. It 
was at once suggested^ tJiat he would have written to you, under the 
circumstances in which he was, more probably than to any one else ; 
but yon said that you had not received any letter from him. You 
and Mrs. Lyman then examined the drawers in the chamber, such as 
were not locked, to see if he had left any note, or letter, in them ; but 
none was found. 

When we left the house in Bowdoin-square, we walked together to 
Pemberton Hill ; I turned up into the Square, and came home ; you 
went down Court street, to take measures in reference to the sad 
event which had occurred. This was near two o'clock, as nearly as I 
can remember, but not two. I went home, and, as soon as I had 
attended to some affairs there, I went into your house, with a view to 
some arrangement for informing Mr. Wells's family of the melancholy 
occurrence. My brother Patrick went into your house either just 
before, or just after me. On my entrance, you told me you had just 

8R 



682 



got the letter^ and you held in your hand a thick letter ; you were 
crossing the room at the moment; you then sat down by the window, 
and broke the seal of the letter. After lookinir through the letter 
hastily, yoa read to us some parts of it, but not the whole, as I sup- 
posed and understood at the time. 

At the same time you stated to me, that you had ^ee^n Mr. Edward 
Brooks, since you had parted with me, and that you had also taken 
some measures in relation to a coroner. 
I am, dear sir, 

Yours truly, 

JAMES JACKSON. 
Pemherton Square^ December 3, 1847. 
To John A. Lowell, Esq. 

There is another letter from Dr. Jackson, dated January 
26,1848, printed in the " Reply," containing a few sentences, 
which have a remote bearing on questions appertaining to 
Mr. Lowell's interview with me, and which sentences I there- 
fore extract in this connexion, as I shall have occasion to 
refer to them. 

" On that day, about one o'clock, you came to my house, and showed 
me a note signed " Mary Lyman," or " M. Lyman," I forget which. 
The note was written without the usual formalities, and every thing 
about it showed that the writer was under great agitation. You 
expressed doubts as to the person who wrote it, but I felt persuaded 
that it was from the sister of Mr. Boott. The note begged you to 
go directly to her, and to take me with you. We went accordingly 
to Mr. Boott's residence in Bowdoin-square." [L. pp. 186-7.] 

The letter then states what occurred at the house, and par- 
ticularly what Mrs. Lyman's demeanour was, and proceeds 
thus : — 

"After a time I suggested the propriety of having a coroner's in- 
quest ; at which she manifested some reluctance, and asked if such a 
measure was necessary. I said, that, if it were not taken, some ques- 
tion might afterwards be raised, whether Mr. B. died by his own 
hands, or those of another, a point which any jury could decide then 
by seeing what we saw. 

" This conversation led to a question as to Mr. Booths insanity. 
On this point Mrs. Lyman spoke with a great deal of vehemence^ 
utterly denying that he had ever been insane." [L. pp. 187-8.] 

Now I do not propose to make a point of that, which I did 



683 



not make a point of, formerly. Bat, on reading all the state- 
ments we now have, one cannot but be struck with the sin- 
gularity of several facts, of which we are still left without 
any satisfactory explanation. 

How did it happen, that Mrs. Lyman's messenger should 
have found Mr. Lowell at his hoiise^ so late in the day as Dr. 
Jackson puts it, — ''between twelve and one o'clock," accord- 
ing to one letter, — ''about one o'clock," according to the 
other? 

How did it happen, that a letter, put into the post-office 
the night before, sliould not have reached Mr. Lowell till 
after two o'clock ? It is said, indeed, that " every business 
man knows that such delays are of constant occurrence at our 
post-office ; letters, so deposited, not being, ordinarily^ at- 
tended to, till after the morning distribution of the mails." 
[L. p. 17.] But I cannot find that such is the common ex- 
perience of other business men ; nor that the supposed cus- 
tom of delay, in the delivery of city letters, is admitted by 
the postmaster. 

How happened it that, — when it was suggested, as Dr. Tack- 
son states, in the conversation with Mrs. Lyman, that the 
letter, written by Mr. Boott, was probably for Mr. Lowell ^ 
and when the drawers of the chamber were immediately 
searched, to see if it might not have been deposited in one of 
them, and when the conclusion was formed, from all the cir- 
cumstances, that Mr. Boott must have gone to the post-office 
the night before, — how happened it, I sa}^, that the inquiry 
was not pursued to other places, where Mr. Lowell's letters, 
at that time of day, were most likely to be ? The most 
natural course, one would think, would have been for Mr. 
Lowell, on his way from Bowdoin-square, to have stopped 
at his own house, and, if the letter had not arrived during 
his absence, to have proceeded to his counting room, and to 
the post-office, before calling upon me or the coroner ; or, if 
he chose to call on either of us by the way, still to have pro- 
ceeded, thence, directly to those natural places of inquiry ; 
since his belief, as expressed to me in our conversation, was, 



684 



" that the deceased had put a letter into the post-office for 
somebody, between ten and eleven o'clock, last night ;-' [B. p. 
145.] and it was immediately suggested by me, as it seems 
it had previously been suggested by Mrs. Lyman, or Dr. 
Jackson, that the letter was most likely to have been ad- 
dressed to him. The statement of the '' Reply," however, is, 
that Mr. Lowell went directly from the house in Bowdoin- 
square to my office ; thence, I know, he went straight to the 
coroner's ; and thence, it seems, he went back directly to his 
own house, whence he had lately come. " I found that the 
coroner had gone to dinner ; and on returning to my own 
house, I received the letter." [L. p. 16.] 

And here, again, we are, naturally, led to ask, from whom 
did he receive it ? Who brought it to his house, at a little 
after two o'clock ? Why have we not the direct evidence of 
that person, that he delivered the letter there, at that time, 
instead of the evidence of another person, who only saw it in 
Mr. LowelVs possession afterwards 1 It must have been a 
letter of remarkable size, if it contained all that it is said to 
have contained, including a will ; it was '' a thick letter," 
according to Dr. Jackson, and therefore likely to be distin- 
guished from the common run of post-office letters ; it was 
addressed in Mr. Boott's own hand, with which every clerk 
in Mr. Lowell's counting room must have been familiar ; and, 
in consequence of the general shock caused by this suicide, 
and the immediate connexion of the letter with that event, 
in the public mind, the fact that a last letter had been re- 
ceived by Mr. Lowell, made, within four and twenty hours 
of its reception, and for a long time after, such a sensation, 
among all persons connected either with Mr. Boott or Avith 
Mr. Lowell, that one would think the man, who had brought 
that letter to Mr. Lowell, could never have forgotten the 
circumstance. Yet his testimony is wanting. The coro- 
ner, it will be observed, by the way, in his last account, 
says, that Mr. Lowell told him^ " I have just taken a letter 
from the post-office.'^ In one of his former statements, the 
coroner said, that the letter was opened in his presence. 



685 



[Ante, p. 678.] And Dr. Jackson says, that, when he saAV 
the letter in Mr. Lowell's hands, " you [Mr. Lowell] stated 
to me, that you had seen Mr. Edward Brooks, smce you 
had parted with me, and that you had also taken some 
measures in relation to a coroner.'''' [Ante, p. 682.] Is Dr. 
Jackson, then, quite sure, that he actually saw the break- 
ing of the seal ? — for that is the only circumstance, in 
his whole statement, tending to fix the fact, independently 
of Mr. Lowell, that the letter was, at that moment, just re- 
ceived ; and even that circumstance does not positively ex- 
clude the idea, that Mr. Lowell, might have taken it from 
the post-office, — as the coroner, says he had declared to liim,' 
five minutes before, — and, consequently, might have had it, 
though unread, in his possession, at the time of our interview. 
He may have had his reasons for not wishing the fact to be 
known, until he had found opportunity to examine the con- 
tents, and make up his mind whether he should disclose them 
or not. 

The reader may think all this tending to superfluity of 
captiousness ; but he must see abundant reason why / should 
have become extremely distrustful of Mr. Lowell, throughout 
this whole business. There was something peculiar, too, 
in his manner of speaking about the letter, during our con- 
versation, which I cannot convey to the reader. Suspecting 
nothing at the time, I did not, then, attempt to account for 
it to my own mind. But when I recall it now, as I do, 
distinctly, I confess that the circumstance has its effect upon 
my judgement. However, all I have further to say on the 
subject is, that, if Mr. Lowell is satisfied with the position, 
in which he has left this part of his case, I am also. In- 
deed, I never considered the mere point of his having re- 
ceived the letter before he called at my office, a very material 
point /or me ; nor do I consider that drop in the bucket to be, 
any longer, very material for Mr. Lowell. 

That which I did, and do, consider material, namely, the 
admitted fact that the letter was in Mr. Lowell's possession 
long before the inquest, — his proceeding in the inquest, not- 



686 

withstanding, after what had passed between us, without 
notice to me of the reception and contents of the letter, — his 
conducting the inquest to a result, which excluded insanity, in 
the existing posture of our family affairs, — his doing this in 
the absence of both Mr. William Boott and myself, without 
caution given to either of us of his intention, or desire, in 
that respect, — his omission to notify to Mr. William Boott the 
sad event of the day, and the inquest proposed, contrary to his 
express engagement, — his declaration to the jurors of cir- 
cumstances tending to account for the death on the theory of 
maltreatment by relatives, and, especially, his suggestion that 
•the deceased had been untruly charged with mismanagement 
of his father's estate, — the use made by him, in that con- 
nexion, of the account drawn up by himself, and of the al- 
lowance by the judge of probate of the balance it claimed, 
without stating the manner, in which it came to be allowed, 
— the suppression, by suggestions of expediency, of all these 
matters in the official report, coupled with total omission to 
communicate them to me in any other form, — his subsequent 
conduct in relation to the letter of the deceased, allowing its 
contents to become known, sufficiently to connect themselves 
with common rumours respecting the cause of the suicide, and 
yet refusing to me a sight of the letter, and any fair oppor- 
tunity to examine and meet the charges, which he said it 
contained, — his assurance, contrary to the fact, that he had 
not shown or read the letter to anyone, — all this, — my whole 
original complaint, — stands, after a " Reply," substantially, 
just as it did, or, at least, no better than it did for Mr. Low- 
ell. His explanations on tbese points must be briefly dis- 
posed of. 



687 



CHAPTER LXIII. 
MR. Lowell's conduct in relation to the inquest, his 

INTEREST IN ITS RESULT. 

The '' Reply " makes a great show of excellent motives 
and kind intentions, on the part of Mr. Lowell. I, for- 
merly, said nothing about motives or intentions. Mr. Lowell 
chooses to bring them into the case ; and, it is my business, 
now, to examine what he says of them. 

The reader, however, should first be reminded of the fol- 
lowing conversation between me and Mr. Lowell. : — 

" Mr. Lowell was the first person, who informed me of the event. 
The course of our interview was nearly as follows. He came into 
my office at about fifteen or twenty minutes before two o'clock, and 
told me, in general terms, that Mr. Wright Boott had destroyed him- 
self. I was much shocked, and expressed my surprise, remarking, 
that 'I thought he had been very tranquil since the settlement of the 
accounts.' Mr. Lowell said, ' he has been quite tranquil until about 
ten days ago, when he got an idea that his brother William had stolen 
a letter of his, and sent for me in consequence. He said it was a 
letter from his mother, which ought to have come by the last steamer, 
and insisted that his brother must have taken it from the post-office 
and kept it. 1 found it impossible to reason him out of this idea. He 
insisted upon my going with him. to the post-office for the purpose of 
investigating the subject, and getting his box changed.' Mr. Lowell 
then narrated the particulars of the suicide, so far as they were known 
or conjectured, and, among other things, mentioned, that the deceased 
had put a letter into the post-office, lor somebody, between ten and 
eleven o'clock last night. I made no remark on that at the time, — 
but he, soon after, going on with his narrative, repeated, with some 
emphasis, ' he put a letter into the post-office last night, and I can't 
find that any body has got it.' I then asked, ' how do you know 
that?' He said, ' the servants saw him writing till about half past 
ten, and then saw him put a letter into the breast of his coat and go 
out with it. He was absent just about long enough to have gone to 
the post-office ; but nothing has been heard of the letter, and nobody 
knows to whom it was directed.' I said, ' You would have been the 
most likely person for him to have addressed a letter to.' He replied, 
" Perhaps so — but it may have been sent to Mrs. Ealston, or to Mr. 
Wells.' I said, ' Yes, or it may have been directed to England.' 



He assented to this as not unlikely. I then remarked, ' All that you 
have now told me serves to confirm the idea that I have long enter- 
tained, as you know, that Wright was insane.' He said, ' I don't 
know about that. Do you think there ought to be an inquest?' I 
replied, ' By all means.' He then asked, ' Where is the coroner to 
be found ? I don't know where to find one.' I answered, ' Neither 
do I ; but I presume somewhere among the constables' offices in 
Court-square.' It was, by this time, about two o'clock, and T pro- 
posed to go with him into Court-square and see if we could find the 
coroner. We went out together with that view. On the way I re- 
marked, that, ' in the present state of affiiirs in the family I should 
rather prefer not to be present at the inquest, unless it is necessary.' 
He said, ' It is not at all so — I can do every thing.' I reminded him 
that Mr. William Boott was at Lowell, and would not be back till six 
o'clock. He said, ' Give yourself no trouble about that. I will be 
at the cars myself, or have some one there, to notify him the moment 
he arrives, and will make all previous arrangements.' 

On arrival in Court-square, I soon found the sign of Jabez Pratt, 
coroner, which I pointed out, saying, ' here is the man you want ;' and 
as I was anxious to go home and break the news to my wife, I in- 
quired, ' Do you want any thing more of me ?' He said ' No, — I 
will take care to notify William Boott ;' and I left him at the door of 
Mr. Pratt's office, just after two o'clock, and went home, in perfect 
confidence that he would not only do all that he had undertaken, but 
would do it precisely as it ought to be done." [B. pp. 145-6.] 

Not one word of this narrative is contradicted, or mate- 
rially qualified, in the " Reply." 

Now my complaint was of mifriendly treatment, to say the 
least, — considering the relations, in which we stood, — in pro- 
ceeding with the inquest, and allowing it to terminate as it did, 
after the receipt of the letter, precisely as if there had been 
no change of the circumstances, under which I had expressed 
my desire not to be present, and to leave the conduct of the 
business to Mr. Lowell. 

The " Reply " makes no direct answer to this ; but it pre- 
sents a number of excuses. The nearest approach to an 
answer lies in the following disclaimer of any conceivable in- 
terested motive to act adversely to me, and in the suggestion 
of the insignificance of a coroner's verdict, in questions of 
property : — 

" I had no interest whatever in the settlement of Mr. Boott's ac- 
counts, or in the verdict of the jury of inquest." " I knew that a verdict 



689 



of suicide, by a coroner's jury, invoh^es, in this country, no consequen- 
ces ; that it does not necessarily express any opinion on the question of 
insanity ; and that, when it does, it can not be introduced, even as 
'prima facie evidence, in a trial on the probate of the wilL" [L. p. 20.] 

How Mr. Lowell came to know, before he had a moment's 
time to consult counsel, so much of the law on this subject, 
he does not inform us ; but, if he knew all this, he also 
knew how usual it is for the verdict of a jury of in- 
quest to establish the fact of insanity, as a means of 
accounting for, and excusing, the suicide, whenever there 
is the slightest other evidence to show a disordered mind. 
He knew, besides, how vastly important it was, irrespective 
of any mere legal consequences, that such a verdict should 
be found in this particular case, if the facts would warrant 
it. Especially he knew, that such a verdict could not but 
be greatly desired, and reasonably expected, both by Mr. 
William Boott and myself, considering certain facts, which 
were beyond dispute, and our long settled opinions, and the 
dissension, that had existed in the family on this very point, — 
all perfectly well known to Mr. Lowell. 

It is said, in further excuse, that ''six out of the eight sur- 
viving members of Mr. Boott's family, did not believe in his 
insanity, and desired no verdict contrary to the truth." [L. 
p. 21.] 

Of course, no one of the family desired a verdict contrary to 
the truth ; but the very question among them had been, — 
What is the truth ? An impartial jury, weighing the evidence 
without feeling or prepossession, could judge better than 
they. No one of the six brothers and sisters referred to, ex- 
cept Mrs. Lyman, was, at that time, acquainted with the fact 
of the suicide. What their opinions might be, after such a 
startling event, was quite unknown to Mr. Lowell, except in 
the case of Mrs. Lyman. She had never been accustomed 
to think her brother insane ; but, it is very evident, from the 
account of her state of feeling at the moment, given by Dr. 
Jackson and Mr. Lowell, [L.pp. 186-188.] that her desir ewovXdi 
have been for that result^ which she might have been led to 



690 



think most favourable to her brother's memory. What others 
of the family might desire, in this new posture of the case, 
Mr. Lowell could not possibly judge of The most of them, 
probably all except myself, were utterly ignorant of particu- 
lars of recent occurrence touching the state of Mr. Boott's 
mind, — the scene, for example, at the post-office, alluded to 
above, no less than the suicide. The postmaster testified 
to that scene, afterwards, in the probate court, as satisfying 
several persons present that Mr. Boott was insane ; and there 
was other conduct of the deceased, about that time, which 
had impressed other stra?igers with the like belief, as I shall 
have occasion to show. Mr. Lowell acted, therefore, with 
extraordinary presumption and precipitancy, if he really as- 
sumed, as his motive of action, that all the near relatives, 
except Mrs. Brooks and myself and Mr. William Boott, — 
could their sentiments have been collected over the dead 
body, with full knowledge of all the facts known to him, — 
would not have felt the desire, which relations ordinarily feel, 
that a jury should be satisfied that the last fatal act was 
fairly attril)utable to an irresponsible state of mind. 

Does Mr. Lowell mean to have it supposed that they would 
have preferred, at that solemn moment, to have it believed, — 
as he has since endeavoured to cause them and others to be- 
lieve, — that Mr. Boott ''with great calmness, as befitted the 
occasion," deliberately adopted suicide, in consequence of the 
cruelty and malice of some of his and their own brothers and 
sisters, rather than to have it believed that his strange conduct, 
which 1 shall prove, during a portion of his life, and in the 
destruction of his life, should be accounted for by insanity ? 
I shall not credit this of any one of them. And as to their 
present belief, — after a verdict, which did not find that ex- 
cuse, and after the representations, which have been made to 
them by Mr. Lowell, — as I shall prove, — if that belief now is 
what Mr. Lowell asserts, it will be made perfectly obvious 
to every reader, that it is founded, essentially, on their un- 
bounded and much abused confidence in Mr. Lowell. 



691 



Bat, when we are told that he had no interest in the mat- 
ter, and did nothing to influence the verdict^ I beg to ask, 
How came one of the jurors to be impressed with the belief, 
frcm all he heard and saw, " that Mr. Lowell was extremely 
anxious to have Mr. Boott made out a sane man ?" I ask 
further, had he not strong motives to desire that Mr. Boott 
should not be made out an insane man ? 

Look at the magnitude and extent of his pecuniary deal- 
higs with Mr. Boott. See how the property of the estate 
had been mingled, — to what extent, or in what manner, pre- 
cisely, we know not, but to a great extent, we do know, — 
with the affairs of the old firm of Boott & Lowell ; — not 
only the unliquidated interest of the estate in outstanding 
mercantile business, if any there was lawfully outstanding, 
but even the specific funds, which had once been set apart, 
and specifically invested, for the special trusts of the will. 
Of those identical funds, so invested, a sum of $52,000, at least, 
in stocks, is traced directly from the executor into the hands of 
Boott & Lowell. [Ante, p. 527.] The stocks were sold by 
them ; and, as yet, the proceeds are not traced out of theii' 
hands, hade to the estate. I do not mean to suggest even a 
probability that any part of them, beyond commissions and 
usual mercantile charges, still rests in Mr. Lowell's pocket. 
That, of course, I know nothing about. But it is not the idea, 
which I mean to present. It is far from covering the whole 
question of direct pecuniary interest. The firm, as a firm, it is 
clear, was, at one time, largely indebted to the estate for these 
stocks, or their price, or their proceeds, and for other funds of 
the estate in their hands. One of the partners was himself the 
executor. The other partner, so far as we can see, takes and 
uses, jointly with the executor, trust property, which he must 
have known that the executor had no right, or authority, so 
to deal with. There may have been, and I believe that there 
was, more or less of loss upon the operations of the house of 
Boott & Lowell. Mr. Lowell no where hints the contrary, 
though his argument requires it. Perhaps, it may not have 
been of great amount ; yet, as Mr. Boott was situated, it 



692 



was of real importance to him. There may have been, and 
there probably was, (Mr. Lowell can tell us, and nobody else 
can,) afterwards, and many years ago, some settlement of all 
the partnership accounts of Boott &> Lowell, between the 
partners. In that case, it must have been understood, of 
course, that Mr. Boott was to take upon himself the burden 
of duly accounting, in behalf of the firm, for all that belonged 
to his trusts, and that he would hold his partner harmless on 
that score. But, as it turned out, before any such accounting 
took place, he was found to have lost what little property 
there may have been of his own ; and a large part of the prop- 
erty of the estate was, also, irretrievably lost in his hands, 
and he became utterly unable to account for it. Did all the 
funds of the estate, for which Boott & Lowell had made 
themselves chargeable, ever reach their true owners? Is Mr. 
Lowell, or is he not, yet liable, as surviving partner, to ac- 
count in equity for any balance ? Were the circumstances 
such, that the private settlement between the partners, pre- 
suming that there was one, left no responsibility upon Mr. 
Lowell to see to the due application of these trust moneys ? 

I put these matters interrogatively, because all the circum- 
stances are not yet disclosed, nor, perhaps, enough of them 
to warrant a distinct and positive opinion. All we positively 
know is, that funds, which stood in the name of " John 
W. Boott, executor^^ went to Boott & Lowell ; and that, 
whatever may have been restored by Boott & Lowell to 
J. Wright Boott, personally, nothing went back from them, 
ostensibly, to " John W. Boott, executor P Whatever he held, 
after the dissolution of that firm, he held, apparently, in his 
own name and right, until the year 1831 ; and when, in that 
year, he undertook to reconstruct his trust funds, the property 
was so embarrassed, by his private pledges and engagements, 
that he was quite unable to clear it. It never has been clear- 
ed, to this day, except by appropriating to the payment of 
his private debts, large portions of the income of the trust 
property itself, and a large part of the proceeds of the sale of 
the mansion-house. Who is to answer for the loss ? 



698 



However that may be, there has been, on Mr. Lowell's 
part, such a want of frankness and readiness of disclosure, 
concerning the connexion of Boott and Lowell with the ex- 
ecutor's stock dealings, and concerning other transactions of 
that period, in which he participated more or less, that, until 
the mystery of his silence, and the true nature of the transac- 
tions, shall have been satisfactorily explained, he cannot rea- 
sonably complain of conjectures to his disadvantage. Without 
imagining, therefore, any thing more essentially wrong than 
an improper use of these trust funds, by permission of the 
executor, at a time when Mr. Lowell was a very young man, 
connected in business with an older one, whom he may have 
supposed richer in his own right than he was, I am obliged to 
infer, from his marked reserve, the existence of some reason, 
which made it undesirable to Mr. Lowell, when a;i executor's 
account was to be settled, that these old transactions should 
be minutely inquired into ; and especially undesirable, after- 
wards, that the suggestion of any kind or degree of insanity, 
on the part of Mr. Boott, should be mixed with them, or with 
the settlement of December, 1844. Is a mere general dis- 
claimer of personal interest satisfactory, under such circum- 
stances ? It is all we have from Mr. Lowell. 

The next fact we find, bearing on this point, is a large 
loan, — no less than $30,000, — made by Mr. Lowell, from trust 
funds in his hands, to Mr. Boott, and made upon the security 
of stocks, which, though standing in Mr. Boott's name, it now 
appears, did not in equity belong to Mr. Boott, but to the 
trusts of his father's estate ; and it seems that Mr. Lowell 
had means of knowing their true ownership, or at least knew 
enough to put him on inquiry. [Ante, Ch. 39.] How 
came Mr. Lowell to make such a loan ? How came he 
to take such security ? Was it all out of disinterested re- 
gard for Mr. J. Wright Boott ? The loan is, afterwards, 
increased, by an advance of $21,000 more on Mr. Boott's ac- 
count, and additional stocks of the estate pass into Mr. Low- 
ell's hands, he knowing, at that time, certainly, that Mr. 
Boott was not worth one dollar of his own, and that these 



694 



stocks had been specifically marked as the estate's property. 
[Ante, Ch. 36.] Other subsequent advances are at least prob- 
able ; and thirteen years elapse, during which there seem to 
have been continued pecuniary dealings with Mr. Boott, 
founded always, apparently, on the security of these stocks. 
And, during all this period, the income of the trust funds is 
constantly applied, without the knowledge of the party enti- 
tled to it, to the reduction of the principal, and the payment 
of the interest, of the debt due to Mr. Lowell. Mr. Boott is 
then called upon to settle an account. Mr. Lowell prepares 
orie for him, showing nothing of the transfer of the trust 
funds to Boott & Lowell, nor of the subsequent pledge to 
himself of the stocks, which really represented more or less of 
those funds, but exhibiting a balance, as due from the estate 
to Mr. Boott, just sufficient to cover his private debt to Mr. 
Lowell. Mr. Boott positively refuses to sign this account. 
He declares that he will never sign any account, which rep- 
resents him as an apparent creditor of his brothers and sisters. 
He finally yields, and does sign and present the account, and 
the heirs, knowing nothing of these facts, agree to allow it, 
if he will resign his trust. In the mean time, he had made 
a will, under very singular circumstances, bequeathing to 
Mr. Lowell reversionary property enough to cover this same 
debt, which was afterwards paid by the settlement of ac- 
counts, and bequeathing to him, besides, his very valuable 
collection of '' plants, and gardening apparatus, and botanical 
books." [B. App. p. 41.] Now, if Mr. Boott was an insane 
man all this time, — I leave the reader to his own conclusions. 
I only ask, whether it did not behove Mr. Lowell to make 
him out sane, if he could ? 

How is it possible, upon the ordinary principles of human 
nature, that Mr. Lowell should have been desirous, or willing, 
that Mr. l^oott should be thought by any body to have been 
an insane man, if he could see any other probable way of 
accounting for the facts, and, especially, if he himself believ- 
ed, as he says he did, — and he certainly so testified, — that he 
had never seen any indications of insanity ? Having taken a 
decided stand on that point in Mr. Boott's life time, by repre- 



695 



sentations to some of the heirs, — though not to me, — while a 
settlement of accounts was to be made for Mr. Boott, in a 
form to prevent inquiry and cover his own claim, how could 
he, afterwards, recede from the ground he had taken, when a 
settlement had been actually made on that basis ? A finding 
of insanity, at the death, would, assuredly, have run back, 
in the mind of every man, to the first moment when it had 
become a subject of discussion, or suspicion ; and who could 
say where such an inquiry would stop, or to what it might 
lead, in connexion with such an account of the whole exec- 
utorship as had been, so recently, settled with the heirs, 
upon a compromise, made in ignorance of material facts ? 
It was difficult, — is it not always difficult ? — for Mr. Lowell 
to take a retrograde course. 

I do not mean to suggest, that he may not have fully per- 
suaded himself of that, which it was most for his interest to 
believe. I shall have occasion, indeed, to prove a very sud- 
den change of opinion, respecting Mr. Boott's sanity and the 
causes of trouble in the family ; and that this change of opin- 
ion was precisely coincident with his knowledge of the fact, 
that there must be a resignation of the trusteeship, and a 
settlement of the executor's accounts. I do not say that the 
change was not a real one. All I mean to say is, that, having 
expressed an opinion of Mr. Boott's sanity, long before his 
death, having acted upon it, and having caused others to act 
upon it, and having, thereby, secured a settlement of the ac- 
counts in his own way, that opinion may well have become 
fixed and immovable, and was, also, as it happens, the opin- 
ion, which his interests required him to maintain. He wa.s 
no longer open to conviction by any new fact. There was 
nothing for him to do, but, either to back out entirely, 
admitting that he had been all in the wrong himself, and 
that he had misled others, or to maintain, in spite of suicide, 
and of whatsoever else might happen, the positions, to which 
he had formerly pledged himself; — namely, that Mr. Boott 
was perfectly sane, — that the notions of any mismanagement, 
unless in mere matters of form, were totally unfounded, — 
and that the account, he had prepared for him, was a 



696 



complete and unimpeachable account. To back out ! What 
was it but to endanger the settlement, and the reopening of 
accounts ? And, apart from all considerations about Boott &, 
Lowell, how can he have the face to say, that he had no 
interest in the settlement of an account, which paid to him 
a long standing debt of $25,000, resting upon a security, 
concerning which nice inquiries were at least disagreeable ? 
What odds does it make, that the moneys, lent, were from 
trust funds in his hands, for which he may have been ac- 
countable to his trust, and not his own private moneys ? And 
how can he venture to declare, thus publicly, that he had no 
interest in the verdict of the jury, if that verdict was to in- 
volve, in any form, or for any purpose, the question of Mr. 
Boott's sanity or insanity ? What difference would it make to 
him, that the verdict would not be legal evidence to affect 
the probate of Mr. Boott's will, or have any other legal effect, 
if it was to have an effect in popular estimation, or in the 
estimation of the Boott family, upon matters, in which he 
had so deeply committed himself? 

When a portion of the family had been, all along, main- 
taining that Mr. Boott was insane, and another portion had 
been insisting that he was not, what would have been the 
effect of the opinion of six impartial men, trying the question 
judicially, and publicly declaring that the suicide was a con- 
sequence of insanity ? Was it not motive enough, then, for a 
desire to prevent so striking a confirmation of the disputed 
opinions of Mr. William Boott and Mr. Edward Brooks, that 
Mr. Lowell had, himself, so recently, made up, and induced 
Mr. J. Wright Boott to adopt, an account exhibiting a bal_ 
ance in his own favour, — that he had procured that account to 
be allowed in the manner, which has been shown, — that he 
had himself a personal interest in its allowance, — and that 
several members of the family had relied, in that settlement, 
upon Mr. Lowell's representations that there had been no 
substantial mismanagement, or loss, and that Mr. Boott was 
not labouring under any mental infirmity? These represen- 
tations I shall clearly prove ; and the other facts, I think I 
have proved. 



697 



CHAPTER LXIV. 
MR. Lowell's conduct in relation to the inquest, how i 

WAS MISLED. 

Mr. Lowell left me with the assurance, as he admits, that 
he had received no letter from Mr. Boott ; and, under that as- 
surance, he agreed, at my request, to discharge me from the 
disagreeable necessity of personal attendance at the inquest, 
by volantarily engaging to do every thing himself. 

Now, I ask, did he not, thereby, put himself in my place ? 
Was he not bound, by every obligation of honour, to have the 
business conducted as he knew I should wish to have it con- 
ducted, and in no manner to prejudice me, unless he gave 
me notice to the contrary ? Yet, within five or ten minutes 
from our parting, according to his present showing, he re- 
ceives a letter ; he finds a will in it, cutting off most of the 
heirs, myself included, from any portion of the inheritance ; 
he finds himself' named as the executor ; and he finds that I 
am charged, in the letter, by Mr. Boott, at the last moment of 
his life, with conduct, so disgraceful, that, unless the charges 
were admitted to be the off'spring of some insane delusion, it at 
least deeply concerned me to know them, were it only for pur- 
poses of explanation to Mrs. Boott and her family ; and, as the 
best explanation of them, it deeply concerned me that the 
fact of their author's insanity should be established by the 
inquest. Yet, representing me, as he did for the purposes 
of the inquest, and under the assurance, he had given me, 
that he had no letter from Mr. Boott, and knowing, as he 
did, my long settled opinion of Mr. Boott's insanity, he gives 
me no notice of the reception of this letter, or of this will, but 
proceeds with the inquest, as if nothing new had happened ; 
and, without introducing a particle of the evidence, known 
to him, which would tend to prove the insanity of Mr. Boott, 
or even suggesting that any person entertained such an opin- 
ion, he permits, and in efiect causes, a verdict to be found, 



698 



which, under the circumstances stated, or suggested, by him 
to the jury, is all but an express finding of sanity, in an act 
of suicide caused by my cruel and oppressive treatment of 
the deceased ! 

Now, I ask, whether any fair-minded man, having an inter- 
est of his own, adverse to that of a friend, for whom he was 
acting in so delicate a business, would have done or permitted 
this, without giving his friend very distinct notice of his own 
opinions, and of his adverse interest, and of his own intentions, 
and of the unexpected reception of such a letter, and will, so 
materially altering my position in the case ? Yet Mr. Lowell 
has the coolness to say : — 

" My receiving the letter afterwards could make no difference in 
the course which it was my duty to pursue, excerpt that it made it im- 
perative upon me, as the representative oj Mr. Boott, to take upon 
myself, (what kindness to the parties, and a desire to spare their feel- 
ings, had already induced me to assume) the labor and responsibility 
of the inquest and the funeral." [L. p. 185.] 

Why did he not give me notice, then, that he was about 
to act in this new capacity, and' not as the representative of 
myself, and, through me, of the other survivors in the family ? 
For, it will be remembered, that / was the only male member 
of the family J whom he had consulted on the subject of an in- 
quest. He derived no authority to act in that business, at all, 
except from me, until the receipt of the letter. He left 
me, having undertaken to act as my representative ; — he 
now says that he found himself, almost instantly afterwards, 
called upon to act "as the representative of Mr. Boott ;" — yet 
he gave me no notice of the change, and he thought it his 
"duty," in representing the dead, to misrepresent the living, 
for whom he had undertaken to act. 

Mr. Lowell has the assurance to say further : — 

"Mr. Brooks was fully advised of my opinions on the subject of 
Mr. Boott's insanity both by my letters to Dr. Boott above cited, which 
I had read to Mr. William Boott, and by my conversation with him- 
self that morning, in which I refused to assent to his inference on 
that point /rom the suicide.'^ [L. pp. 184-5.] 



699 



Let us see if this be so. Mr. Lowell does not pretend that 
I was advised of his opinions, as now professed, except upon 
the occasions, and by the particular means, he mentions. My 
former statement was express, as follows : — 

" As to Mr. Lowell's state of mind upon the subject, [of Mr. Boott's 
insanity] I never had any clear evidence what it was, until I was 
made acquainted with his testimony before the jury. He never di- 
rectly admitted to me, nor do I knoiv that he did to others, a belief 
that Mr. Wright Boott was not sane. Indeed he could not well do 
that, while he was acting as his agent. But my inferences from his 
remarks were., that he entertained at least a strong suspicion, and in- 
deed I thought a secret belief of it."" [B. p. 91.] 

These were my inferences from his remarks, before the 
conversation immediately preceding the inquest. 

Mr. Lowell now admits that he did entertain that belief, 
or " serious doubts," at least, [L. p. 162.] until he altered his 
mind, about the time of an interview with Dr. Jackson, un- 
der circumstances, which I shall explain. It appears, then, 
by Mr. Lowell's admission, that my inferences, from all that 
had passed between us, were well warranted, unless they 
should have been qualified by the particular facts, he now 
mentions ; which are two : 1. Certain letters from himself 
to a third person : 2. The conversation with me on the day 
of the inquest. 

First, as to his letters. He does not pretend that they were 
ever shown, or read, to me. But, he says, he read them to Mr. 
William Boott ; and this, upon the theory of a conspiracy, he, 
wishes the reader to consider the same thing as having read 
them to me. 

These letters, which are printed in the " Reply," [L. pp. 
164-5.] the reader should now see, attending to certain parts, 
which I shall mark by difference of type. 

LETTER FROM J. A. LOWELL to Dr. FRANCIS BOOTT. 

"Boston, April 10, 1844. 
"Francis Boott, Esq., London. 

"My DEAR Friend, — As I have been told, that my opinion has 
been quoted to you on the subject of the state of your brother Wright's 
mind, I think that it would be unfair, both to hira and to you, if I al- 
lowed such a statement to be made without the proper qualification. 



700 



" I have never seen any thing, in my intercourse with him, that 
would have induced such a suspicion. 

" It is true that, upon an ex parte statement from others, that he 
had taken great offence, without any provocation, against members of 
his own family, — and had proceeded to personal violence against one 
of them, — I became apprehensive that constant seclusion was produc- 
ing unhappy effects upon his mind ; and I did confidentially consult 
Dr. Jackson, whether it might not be well to induce him, by a change 
of scene, to dispel any ideas that might be taking too strong posses- 
sion of his imagination. 

" Since that time, I have found, in my intercourse with other par- 
ties, a degree of exasperation against him, that gives to the whole 
matter, much more than I had supposed, the aspect of an ordinary 
quarrel, in which both sides may have given and endured provocation 
without impeachment of the moral or physical sanity of either, and 1 
must say, that this exasperation is quite inconsistent with a conscien- 
tious belief, however they may persuade themselves, that so near a 
relative has been afflicted with this greatest of human misfortunes. 

" You will not understand me, my dear friend, as taking any part, 
or expressing any opinion, on the original matters in dispute. I have 
carefully avoided hearing any statements from either side. I have 
said to both of them, that there was no sacrifice, of time or feeling, 
that I would not make to bring ahout a reconciliation ; but that, if there 
was no hope of success as a peace-maker, I was determined not to 
become involved in the matter. 

'• My only object now is to prevent improper inferences being made 
from a supposed expression of opinion on my part, — an opinion 
originally founded on hypothetical statements, and which I NOW 

SEE WHAT I THINK GOOD REASON TO WITHDRAW. 

" I inclose a letter from Dr. Jackson on the same subject. 
" I remain yours very truly, 

J. A. LOWELL." 

LETTER FKOM SAME to SAME. 

Boston, April 19, 1844. 
Francis Boott, Esq., London. 

My dear Friknd, — I wrote to you a few days since, inclosing a 
letter from Dr. Jackson, intended to remove any unfair impression 
that might have arisen in your mind from the opinion attributed to 
him, as to the state of your brother's mind. 1 have since seen Wright 
on business connected with these unhappy differences, and am fully 
persuaded that he is as self-possessed and rational as you 
OR I are. 

As I have said to you before, I have no knowledge, nor do I wish 
to have, of the causes of these dissensions, nor do I blame any one. 
Misunderstandings will arise among the most honorable and high- 
minded men, and the interference of friends frequently proves una- 
vailing. 

But I do know much — more, perhaps, than any other fee- 



701 



SON, of the HISTORY OF THIS PROPERTY AND ITS MANAGEMENT ; 

and I am vrry sure, that, with wany and very grave errors of form, 

SUBSTANTIALLY THE WHOLE MATTER STANDS RIGHT ; and I do 

earnestly desire, that a pure, generous, and high-minded man, whom 
I have known as such for nearly thirty years, should he shielded 

FROM the OONSEQUENCKS OF MERELY TECHNICAL OMISSIONS. 

I am, dear sir, very truly yours, 

J. A. LOWELL. 

These are the two letters, which, Mr. Lowell says, he read 
to Mr. William Boott. Now I never understood, from Mr. 
William Boott, that he had heard Mr. Lowell read more than 
one letter, addressed by him to Dr. Boott ; though the " Re- 
ply " says that he had read the " letters to Dr. Francis Boott, 
above transcribed." [L. p. 176.] I am confirmed in my 
belief, that the " Reply " errs in that assertion, by the con- 
clusion of Mr. Lowell's own letter to Mr. William Boott, 
dated June 24th, 1844, as will appear by the following cor- 
respondence : — [L. p. 175.] 

LETTER FROM W. BOOTT to J. A. LOWELL. 

Boston, June 22, 1844. 
Dear Sir : 

I have, with great surprise, lately learned from England, that you 
have been writing to my mother about the difficulties existing in her 
family, and that your opinion, or advice^ has had an influence in deter- 
mining her conduct towards some of her children. 

Will you have the kindness to send me a copy of what you have 
written to her, and to give me the reason for your interference? 

I have also learned, at second hand, from Dr. Jackson, that you 
made a statement to him last year, upon which he gave an opinion 
that my brother Wright was of unsound mind ; that you afterwards 
made a second statement to him, which led him to reverse his opinion ; 
and that he, at your request, gave you this second opinion in writing. 

If these things so happened, will you obhge me by informing me 
when your second statement was made, — what it was, — why the pre- 
caution was taken of getting Dr. Jackson to write his opinion, — and 
whether, at the time of making your second statement, you had inquired 
for, and were possessed of the facts necessary for forming a correct 
judgment upon the point in question. 

With many apologies for this trouble, 

I am. Dear Sir, 

Yours very truly, 

Wm. Boott. 
J. A. Lowell, Esq., Boston. 



702 

LETTER FROM J. A. LOWELL to W. BOOTT. 

Boston, June 24th, 1844. 
William Boott, Esq. 

My Dear Sir, — I am willing to believe that your note of Satur- 
day, though somewhat peremptory in form^ was not intended to be 
disrespectful or unfriendly. On that belief I will answer it. 

I never wrote to your mother in my life. / never gave^ directly 
or indirectly, any opinion or advice that could influence her conduct 
towards her children. 

I never made any statement of facts to Dr. Jackson, except such 
as referred to the state of feeling between the parties — facts suffi- 
ciently notorious. 

I did not request of him to reduce his opinion to writing. 

I will only add, that many dissensions and family quarrels, espe- 
cially with persons of a naturally reserved temperament, have their 
origin in the hasty adoption of second-hand rumors. 

I did write to Frank [Dr. Francis Boott J on the subject of the 
state of his brother's mind. If you are disposed to call at my office 
in a spirit of friendliness, I will read you that letter with pleasure. 
I am, dear Sir, yours very truly, 

J. A. Lowell. 

The offer ^ therefore, was confined to the reading of a single 
letter. Was the performance more extensive ? It would seem 
not J from another passage of the '' Reply," directly contra- 
dicting, on this point, the passage above cited, which says 
he read the " letters to Dr. Boott above transcribed." I quote, 
now, as follows : — 

" It will not escape observation, that I was so far from desiring or 
permitting any influence, that might chance to attach to my opinion, 
to operate silently, in London, to the disadvantage of these gentlemen, 
that I communicated to Mr. William Boott himself the only letter^ ex- 
pressing any opinion, which I had written previously to Mr. Wright 
Boott's death." [L. p. 179.] 

Now, we are constrained to ask, which of the two letters, 
above printed from the " Reply," (both of which, it asserts, 
in one place, were read to Mr. William Boott,) was, in fact, 
the ''''Only letter," which, it confesses, in another place, was 
ever so read ? And, suppose that letter to have been fully and 
fairly read, — which is more than I would undertake to 
avouch, — what did I know about it 7 My former statement 
shows ; — 



m 



" The contents of the letter I am not fully informed of. Mr. Will- 
iam Boott did avail himself of the offer to call and hear it read, and 
Mr. Lowell read to him, at the same time, a draft of a letter to Mrs. 
Boott, which, it was understood, had not yet been sent; but Mr. Will- 
iam Boott is unable to recollect the contents of these letters, except 
that they went to explain the circumstances, under which property of 
the estate had come to Mr. Lowell's hands, as security for Mr. Wright 
Boott's note, which he took and held as a trustee, without fault on his 
own part ; and also were calculated to convey an impression that Mr. 
Wright Boott's state of mind was not one of insanity." [B. p. 98.] 

It will be observed that I speak of a letter sent to Dr. 
Boott, and of a letter intended to be sent to Mrs. Boott. 
Now, Mr. Lowell says, that the draft of the letter to Mrs. 
Boott was read at a different time, and several months later. 
[L. p. 179.] If so, it only goes to show how little I really 
knew about Mr. Lowell's writings from any statement of 
Mr. William Boott to me. It will also be observed, that no 
explanation of the " circumstances, under which the property 
of the estate had come into Mr. Lowell's hands," is contained 
in either of the two letters to Dr. Boott. This must have 
been in the subsequent letter to Mrs. Boott. All I could have 
known, then, so far as appears, in March, 1845, (the date of the 
inquest,) concerning the particular letter to Dr. Boott, which 
Mr. William Boott had heard read eight or nine months before, 
was that it was " calculated to convey an impression that Mr. 
Wright Boott's state of mind was not one of insanity." I had 
no idea that a strong and positive opinion to that effect, pur- 
porting to be founded on Mr. Lowell's personal observation, 
had been expressed ; nor that any thing had been said to fore- 
stall Dr. Boott's opinion respecting accounts not then exhib- 
ited, or respecting the executor's general management of the 
property ; still less that a state of " exasperation " against Mr. 
J. Wright Boott, '^ quite inconsistent with a co7iscie?itio2is be- 
lief " of his insanity, and requiring that he should be " shield- 
ed from the consequences of merely technical omissions,''^ 
had been attributed to those members of the family, who 
ventured to maintain that a state of insanity was his unhappy 
condition. Nor do I believe, now, that any such imputation, 
upon Mr. William Boott, as well as myself, was ever made 



704 



known to him by Mr. Lowell, in the form in which it now ap- 
pears. If it had been, I think, I should have heard of it at the 
time ; and in that case, I am sure, it must have led to a call 
for further explanation. In the mean time, during that year, 
(1844-45,) I had held many private conversations with 
Mr. Lowell. No such ideas were ever conveyed to me by 
him. My inferences, from all his conversations, were such, 
respecting his opinions of Mr. J. Wright Boott's state of 
mind, as I have above expressed ; and the case, if doubt- 
ful before, was now illustrated by the fact of a suicide, 
particularly shocking in the manner of its execution. In- 
deed, Mr. Lowell does not pretend that he ever said one 
word to me, that should have prepared me for his testimony 
to the jury, on the point of sanity, except in the conversation 
two hours before the inquest. 

Now let us look to that. It was then that he informed me, — 
not only of the suicide and its horrid circumstances, but, 
also, — of Mr. Boott's sending for him, and his accompany- 
ing Mr. Boott, to see the postmaster, about the missing letter, 
some ten days before. In answer to my remark, that I 
thought Mr. Boott had been quite tranquil since the settle- 
ment of the accounts, Mr. LoAvell said, " He has been quite 
tranquil, until about ten days ago, when he got an idea that 
his brother William had stolen a letter of his," &c. " I found 
it impossible to reason him out of this idea^^ &>c. Now, what 
was this, so far as it went, but positive information to me of 
a most irrational excitement, existing within ten days, known 
to Mr. Lowell, and spoken of, indirectly, as an instance of 
insane delusion 1 I afterwards remarked, " All, that you have 
now told me, serves to confirm the idea, I have long enter- 
tained, as you know, that Wright was insane." He said, " I 
don't know about that. Do you think there ought to be an 
inquest?" I replied, " By all means." [Ante, pp. 687-8.] 

This, is what Mr. Lowell calls, a refusal to assent to my 
inference from the suicide. Was it, in truth, any thing more 
than an expression of slight hesitancy, about a direct admis- 
sion of the fact, connected with the question of having or 



705 



not having an inquest ? The notice of my own opinion was 
not as an inference '-'•from the suicide,'^'' merely, but as an 
opinion previously formed, well known to Mr. Lowell, and con- 
firmed by the new facts he had stated. This notice was per- 
fectly explicit and distinct. Now, if his opinion were clear 
and distinct the other way, and he meant to act fairly to- 
wards me, why did he not, then, declare himself ? Instead of 
doing so, he says, '•''I don't know about that. Do you think 
there ought to he an inquest V For what purpose, let me 
ask, except to resolve all doubts, respecting the sanity of the 
deceased ? So I understood him, certainly, when I replied, 
'' By all means." And did not Mr. Lowell well know that I 
so understood him ? 

Let the reader look to the whole conversation, as above 
detailed, [Ante, pp. 687-8.] and, remembering what Mr. Low- 
ell then told me, respecting Mr. Boott's recently disturbed 
state of mind, (disturbed by nothing but a causeless suspicion 
of a theft by his own brother^) and this followed by such 
an act of suicide, — let him judge, for himself, whether 
I could possibly have inferred, from Mr. Lowell's language, 
that he entertained, nevertheless, that clear and decided 
opinion of Mr. Boott's perfect sanity, which he admits he 
expressed to the jury. If not, I ask again, whether any 
fair-minded man, about to conduct that inquest at my re- 
quest and in my behalf, knowing my decided opinion on that 
subject, and never having expressed to me any decided 
opinion of his own to the contrary, would have left me, after 
such a conversation, to engage in that service, without 
saying, in so many words, that he should feel it to be 
his duty to testify distinctly against my opinion, and not 
to have a verdict of insanity found, if he could prevent 
it? Would any fair-minded man have so testified, as Mr. 
Lowell testified, without notice to me, and have wholly 
omitted to suggest to the jury, that other persons had long 
considered the deceased insane, or even to allude to the case 
of recent excitement at the post-office, which he had just 
mentioned to me ? These same questions, substantially, I 



06 



formerly put to Mr. Lowell ; and the reader has seen all the 
answer he gives to them. 

And now let me put one other. Would any fair-minded 
man, under such circumstances, have given to the jury the 
impressions, he gave to them, concerning ill conduct by my- 
self and others towards the deceased, and have confirmed 
those impressions by showing the outside of a letter, described 
as the last act of the deceased, and as containing charges 
which must prevent its being read, because the deceased was 
not there to substantiate them, without affording to the par- 
ties, so charged, an opportunity to show to the jury that the 
writer was in a deranged state of mind, and that the charges, 
contained in the letter, were founded on nothing but his own 
delusions ? 

Had Mr. Lowell come out, like a man, and said to me, as 
he says now, that, in his belief, Mr. Boott was just as sane as 
I am, the consequence would have been, that I should have 
said, at once, " If that is the case, I must go through the dis- 
agreeable task of attending this inquest in person." I should 
have told Mr. Lowell, that I must invite the jury to consider 
that question ; and that I could not leave it to him to draw 
them in an opposite direction. 

The '' Reply" avers, indeed, that, — 

" So far from endeavouring to impress upon the jury, that Mr. Boott's 
suicide was attributable to the dissensions in the family, I [Mr. Low- 
ell] brought distinctly to their notice, that both in the matter of his 
accounts, and in that of the sale of the house, all difficulties had been 
adjusted, and his mind relieved upon those points, and that I ' did not 
know of any recent cause of trouble.'" [L. p. 15.] 

What he brought distinctly to the notice of the jury, and 
what effect he produced upon them, their testimony best 
proves. That question has been abundantly considered. 
[Ante, Ch. 9, to Ch. 14.] What he avers, above, as to his not 
endeavouring to produce such impressions, I place on the 
same footing with his denial that he ever " gave, directly or 
indirectly^ any opiyiion or advice, that could influence her 
[Mrs. Boott's] conduct towards l^er children." What he did 



707 



write, to Dr. Boott, with whom Mrs. Boott was then living, 
in two particular instances, appears, above, from his own 
showing. What effect it produced, and why it produced 
that effect, I shall distinctly show. But I acquit him, in 
both cases, of a direct intent to accomplish the particular 
mischief. He meant only to effect his own ends. I do 
not charge him with having been malicious^ towards any 
one, but, simply, selfish in the extreme. He did not desire 
to perpetuate ill feelings in the family, which he says I charge 
him with ; [L. p. 166.] still less did he desire to raise up ill 
feeling against himself in any quarter, if he could avoid it. 
Neither did he desire^ perhaps, to satisfy the jury that /, par- 
ticularly, had been the cause of Mr. Boott's death. But, he 
had desired to have the accounts settled as they were settled ; 
he desired that they should remain undisturbed ; he desired 
that there should be no further inquiry into Mr. Boott's exec- 
utorship, and his own dealings with the executor ; and he 
especially desired to have it believed, that Mr. Boott was per- 
fectly sane, in all his previous transactions, notwithstanding 
the presumption against it, afforded by a course of strange 
conduct during life, and by the manner of his death. If 
those ends could be accomplished, and accomplished in so 
quiet a manner as not to expose himself to harm, nor make 
known to me the means of their accomplishment, what cared 
he for collateral consequences to others ? To whom, or to what, 
the death of Mr. Boott might be attributed, provided it were 
not attributed to insanity^ was quite a secondary considera- 
tion, which did not affect Mr. Lowell. Since he chooses, 
therefore, by making his declared intentions and motives so 
prominent, to invite the discussion, I shall submit to the 
reader, whether I have not, now, furnished him with the true 
key to Mr. Lowell's course of proceeding, just before, and at, 
and ever after, the inquest. Was I not right, when I said that 
the question of Mr. Boott's mismanagement as an executor, and 
the question of the truth of the account, which Mr. Lowell 
prepared for him, lie at the bottom of this controversy ? 

The query put to me — '' Do you think there ought to be 



708 



an inquest ?" — was put, in that remarkably ingenuous manner, 
which I have, several times, observed in Mr. Lowell, as if the 
idea was one, that had then, for the first time, struck him. 
Now one of Dr. Jackson's letters, extracted above from the 
''Reply," [Ante, pp. 681-2.] informs us, that the propriety 
of an inquest had been, but a few minutes before, a subject 
of conversation, between Dr. Jackson, Mr. Lowell, and Mrs. 
Lyman, at the house, from which Mr. Lowell had jus* 
come. "After a time," says Dr. Jackson, '' I suggested the 
propriety of having a coroner'^s inquest ; at which she 
[Mrs. Lyman] manifested some reluctance." [L. p. 187.] — 
'' They [Mrs. Lyman's remarks] were occasioned only by 
some suggestion, above referred to, in respect to his sanity, 
or insanity, which arose in discussing the question of a 
coroner'^s juryP [L. p. 188.] We may ask, by the way, 
how came the question of " sanity or insanity " to be sug- 
gested, if Dr. Jackson and Mr. Lowell both thought there 
was no reasonable ground for such a question? And who 
suggested it ? However that may be, another of Dr. Jackson's 
letters states, that, when he and Mr. Lowell parted, in 
walking from the house, " you [Mr. Lowell] went down 
Court-street to take measures in reference to the sad event 
lohich had occurred f^ — and after they had met, again, at Mr. 
Lowell's house, at the time when Mr. Lowell was seen with 
the letter in his hand, Dr. Jackson says, — " At the same time 
you stated to me that you had seen Mr. Edward Brooks, since 
you had parted with me, and that you had also taken some 
measures in relation to a coroner.^'' [L. pp. 18, 19.] I hold it 
to be certain, therefore, that Mr. Lowell came to my office fully 
impressed with the necessity of an inquest, in Dr. Jackson's 
opinion, and with the idea of a trial of sanity or insanity con- 
nected with it : and that he came for the purpose, not merely 
of telling me of the suicide, but of sounding me on the 
subject suggested to him by Dr. Jackson, and of taking 
measures for the inquest, if he found an inquest to be 
unavoidable. 

He may have been in hopes that I should discourage 



709 



the idea, and that he might see his way to a funeral without 
any inquest at all, throwing the responsibility of that proceed- 
ing upon me. That, I have no doubt, he would have much 
preferred to the risk of an inquest, which might find " suicide 
in consequence of insanity.^'' But, if my decision should be in 
favour of an inquest, his next intention, I have no doubt, was, 
to secure to himself ^ if possible, the m^anagewyent of that in- 
quest ; for, no sooner had I answered to his question, — " By 
all means," — than he replied by asking '' Where is the coroner 
to he found? I don't knoio where to find one f^ — [B. p. 145.] 
indicating, very plainly, his formed intention to search for such 
an officer. And, since he says he had not then received Mr. 
Boott's letter, and was not aware that he was named as his 
executor, I beg to ask, what he had to do with an inquest ? 
and why had he formed the intention of going himself to the 
coroner, before I had made any request that he should do so, 
or expressed any desire to avoid a personal attendance ? 

He had already ascertained, as appears by one of Dr. Jack- 
son's letters, [L. pp. 187-8.] what Mrs. Lyman's testimony 
would be, if she were called as a witness. Had he not 
satisfied himself, also, that the women in the house would 
give no opinion contradictory to her, on the point of Mr. 
Boott's sanity ? Mr. William Boott, he knew, was at Lowell. 
It was easy to have an inquest holden before that gentleman 
could arrive. All he had to do, further, was, to contrive to 
get me out of the way, and the course was his own. In this 
instance, I must confess, that I fell, or rather threw myself, 
most unsuspiciously, into Mr. Lowell's trap, proposing, even 
of my own accord, not to be present. The friendly alacrity, 
with which Mr. Lowell embraced that oifer, and took upon 
himself the entire burden of so unpleasant an office, would 
have been, to a bystander, delightful to behold. It ought to 
have opened my eyes ; but it did not. Strange as it may 
seem, after the hints I had had, I still confided in Mr. Lowell. 
But I had no suspicion, it will be remembered, of numerous 
facts, since discovered, which these pages disclose ; and, par- 
ticularly, no suspicion of any interested motive to govern, or 
bias, his course at the inquest. 



710 



CHAPTER LXV. 



BOOTT. HIS ALLEGED MOTIVES. SOME CORRECTIONS BY MRS. 
LYMAN. 

Mr. Lowell has. all along, disclaimed, most emphatically, 
any personal interest, or interference, in the difference, which, 
unhappily, arose in the Boott family, respecting Mr. J. Wright 
Boott. According to his own account, he was the common 
disinterested friend of all parties. The general belief that 
he was so has been his chief strength. It has given to his 
statements undue influence with certain members of the fam- 
ily, who had no opportunity of judging for themselves, and 
with the community generally, for the same reason. This 
has enabled him to play his game, thus far, with a success 
almost equal to its boldness ; for there are games, at which 
face and tone are said to be more effective than a strong 
hand. 

He declares, in one of his letters to me, that he was '' no 
party to the difficulties which have caused so much pain in 
Mrs. Boott's family." [B. p. 17.] I shall show, on the other 
hand, when I come to that question, that he was, behind the 
curtain, a principal party to all the difficulties of the year be- 
fore Mr. Boott's death, as well as since his death, and that he 
is, now, the chief cause of painful estrangements, still exist- 
ing, between a mother and children, whose mutual attach- 
ments were of the tenderest description. 

In another letter to me, printed above, he says, " The kind- 
ness that I experienced, in early life, from Mr. and Mrs. 
Boott, has endeared to me all of the name." [Ante, p. 633.] 
Mrs. Lyman, Mrs. Brooks, and Mr. William Boott were, of 
course, embraced in this circle of affection. But it seems 
by no means to have been confined, literally, to those who 
bore, or had borne, the name of Boott. The circle was ex- 



711 



pansive enough to include collateral connexions. For me, 
also, it seems, that Mr. Lowell cherished a sentimental attach- 
ment ; since he speaks, in his pamphlet, of a certain " lin- 
gering tenderness," which, alone, prevented him from treat- 
ing, as he says it deserved, my application, in December, 
1846, for an explanation of the course, then first made 
known to me, which he had taken at the inquest. [L. p. 
174] How long this tender sentiment continued to linger 
upon him, to his personal disadvantage, does not distinctly 
appear. It would seem, — not only in my case, but in that of 
the other members of the family, who are above named, — to 
have thoroughly exhaled in the course of his " Reply." At 
the time, however, of which I now speak, — the date of the 
inquest, — this unrequited tenderness had suffered no abate- 
ment. We shall see the acts of benevolence, to which it 
led. 

The " Reply " admits an express undertaking by Mr. 
Lowell, in his interview with me, to give notice to Mr. Will- 
iam Boott, the moment he should arrive from Lowell. [L. 
p. 184. J He was expected to arrive, and did arrive, in the 
cars, at about six o'clock that afternoon. Mr. Lowell had 
said to me, in reference to the notice, " Give yourself no 
trouble about that. / will he at the cars, or have some 
one there, to notify him, the moment he arrives, and will 
make all previous arrangements ;" and when, on parting 
from him at the door of the coroner's office, I asked, — " Do 
you want any thing more of me ?" — his last word was, — 
" No, — / will take care to notify William Boott, ''^ — that deli- 
cate and friendly duty being so strongly impressed upon his 
mind, by the affectionate sentiments above declared, that 
he could not restrain himself from repeating the assurance. 
[Ante, p. 688.] 

Any step on my part, was, of course, prevented, by my 
implicit reliance on Mr. Lowell. I remained at home, with 
Mrs. Brooks, expecting that Mr. William Boott, as soon as 
the inquest was over, would call upon his sister and myself. 
But when nine o'clock had passed, and I heard nothing, I 



712 

thought it best to go round to Mr. William Boott's lodgings, 
to inquire after him ; and I found this gentleman, at that 
late hour of the evening, uninformed, not only of the inquest, 
which had then been closed several hours, but even of his 
brother^s death ! 

Now what says the " Reply" to this ? " I offered to inform 
Mr. William Boott, not of the inquest^ but of the suicide.^^ [L. 
p. 184.] Of course Mr. Lowell did not offer, in terms, at the 
interview with me, to inform him of the inquest, because 
none had, as yet, either been held or appointed. It had only 
been agreed between us, that he should call upon the coroner 
for the purpose of having one appointed. But my under- 
standing was, — and did not Mr. Lowell well know it ? — that 
Mr. William Boott would have the notice before any inquest 
should be actually holden. The " Reply," however, declares 
as follows : — 

" I distinctly stated to Mr. Brooks that the inquest would he held 
that afternoon, and as early as possible, out of respect to Mrs. Ly- 
man's feelings, and that the jury might see every thing as nearly in its 
original condition as possible." [L. p. 184.] 

I am sorry that my recollections do not distinctly bear 
out Mr. Lowell's distinct averments on that head. How 
should he have said any thing about the time, at which an in- 
quest would be holden, before he had seen the coroner, whose 
business it was to appoint a time, and to summon a jury ? What 
great difference could it make, in respect either to Mrs. Ly- 
man's feelings, or to the condition of every thing in the house, 
whether the inquest were holden at about four o'clock, or at 
about six, — -at which latter time it was known that Mr. Will- 
iam Boott would be in town? The "Reply," moreover, 
admits, that 7io steps were taken by Mr. Lowell towards in- 
forming Mr. William Boott of his brother'' s death; and this, 
it is admitted, he did, positively, undertake. Such an omis- 
sion seems the more extraordinary, considering that Mr. 
Lowell's sole motive of action was, as he alleges, his ten- 
derness of feeling towards Mr. William Boott and myself. 
The excuse is a conflicting tenderness of feeling towards 
Mrs. Lyman : — 



713 



" I was the last witness examined, and as soon as I got through I 
called upon Mrs. Lyman. She was in such distress it was impossi- 
ble to leave her, till the arrival of one of her nephews. So much 
time had thus been taken up, that it was dark before I left the house 
and the cars from Lowell had long since arrived. [L. pp. 19, 20.] 

But "one of her nephews," and, as I understand, the 
nephew alluded to, (Mr. Kirk Boott,) it seems, on Mr. Low- 
ell's showing in another place, was himself, all the while, 
present at the inquest, and heard Mr. Lowell testify. [L. p. 
13.] He was at hand, therefore, to take Mr. Lowell's place, 
in tendering such consolation as he could to Mrs. Lyman, the 
moment Mr. Lowell had discharged his imperative duty as a 
volunteer witness. Besides, the pressure of the duty towards 
Mrs. Lyman, (who was consoled by Mr. Lowell with the in- 
formation that her brother's dying breath charged her with 
being a spy iri the house.) was not so urgent, after all, but that 
Mr. Lowell found time, after the verdict, as we learn from his 
own witnesses, to have some considerable talk with the jury 
in order to enlighten them further, concerning the strange 
things they had heard and witnessed. [Ante, pp. 82, 88.] 
Hence, only, was it " dark," when Mr. Lowell left the house, 
though the inquest began at four o'clock, and its necessary 
business need not have occupied one hour. 

But the final reason for omitting the promised notice must 
be entirely satisfactory. " I had no doubt that Mr. William 
Boott had heard of the event, which was by that time knoion 
all over the city .'" [L. p. 20.] Undoubtedly it was ; and Mr. 
William Boott was one of the very few individuals, among 
one hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants of Boston, 
who was ignorant, at nearly half past nine o'clock that even- 
ing, (though he had been in the city three hours,) that his 
own brother had destroyed himself, in the course of the pre- 
ceding night, and that an inquest had been concluded, which 
found a verdict of suicide, but, — as appeared on the following 
morning, — did not find the act to have been one of insanity, 
and scarcely omitted to find that he, himself, as well as I, 
had been a culpable cause of the death ! 



714 

Mr. Lowell, however, makes a great parade of the extraor- 
dinarily kind feelings, which influenced all his movements in 
this matter : — 

" If I took immediate measures for having an inquest held, it was, 
as Dr. Jackson and Mrs. Lyman well know, that the fact of Mr. 
Boott's suicide might be established, before any vulgar rumors should 
assign another cause for his violent end. Mr. Brooks declined being 
present from motives of delicacy, which I could well appreciate, and 
which would apply with at least equal force to Mr. William Boott. 
It never occurred to me that either of them would dream of being 
present. [L. p. 184.J 

In this view of the case, he says, he is confirmed by Dr. 
Boott. Now I take leave to suggest to Mr. Lowell, as a good 
general rule, in case he should, ever, again be called upon to 
perform any like kind offices for his particular friends, that 
it is well to allow, to persons of full age and ordinary dis- 
cretion, an opportunity to judge for themselves, in their own 
affairs ; or, if not, at least to give them notice of the man- 
ner, in which he intends to manage their affairs for them. 
" Motives of delicacy " might withhold parties, having a 
particular interest, from attending an inquest, under some 
circumstances ; but I should, certainly, in my own case, over- 
come any such morbid reluctance, under other circumstances ; 
and I am not able fully to appreciate, perhaps, the value of 
the distinction, between a vulgar rumour that I had cut the 
throat of a brother-in-law, (which Mr. Lowell, thus delicately, 
intimates as one of the hazards of the case,) and a vulgar ru- 
mour that I had been the death of him by unjust accusations, 
groundless calumnies, and a course of malignant persecution. 
The chief difference, in my estimation, lies in this ; — the one 
suggestion, if it be false, is, in most cases, easily disproved ; 
the other, from its nature, is more difficult to grapple with. 
For the one species of slander there is a legal remedy ; for 
the other none. 

As to what actually passed at the inquest, I have nothing 
to add to the statements of the jurors, and of Mr. Lowell's 
own witnesses. [Ante, Ch. 14.] His many excuses, how- 
eve.i ,, seem to deserve notice. He says,— 



715 



" Mr. Brooks, most unjustly, charges me with having been a self- 
called witness at this inquest. Literally 1 no doubt was so ; but that 
I was so for any other purpose than one of kindness to him and Mr, 
William Boott, and to obey the clear dictate of duty, is wholly untrue. 

" I was, as Mr. Brooks well knows, the only person who had, in 
Mr. Boott's own hand writing, evidence of his intention of suicide. 
What would Mr. Brooks, with his predisposition to impute to me base 
and dishonorable motives, have said, if I had, by voluntarily absenting 
myself, suppressed this evidence ?" [L. p. 188.] 

There were several ways, in which Mr. Lowell might have 
relieved himself from so unpleasant a dilemma. One would 
have been to la'^ the letter before the jury, so that they 
might judge of it for themselves, and determine what further 
inquiry, concerning the deceased's state of mind, was called 
for by its extraordinary statements. I say he might, simply, 
have laid the letter before the jury ; for it was the letter, 
not Mr. Lowell, which proved the intention of suicide. Mr. 
Lowell could prove nothing, but that the letter was in Mr. 
Boott's hand- writing, — a fact, which many other persons 
could have proved equally well, — and that he had received it 
at some indefinite hour of that day, by some indefinite means, 
through the post-office, — a fact, which is entirely immaterial. 
Another mode would have been to send the letter to me, 
or to give one notice that he had such a letter, and of its 
contents concerning me, and I should have known, very soon, 
what to do in that case. Where was the kindness to me and 
to Mr. William Boott, in Mr. Lowell's making himself a wit- 
ness, without showing the letter , — declaring that " it contained 
charges, which he [the writer] was not here to substantiate," — 
connecting those charges, by averment and suggestion, with 
notions of harsh and improper conduct towards the deceased, 
in relation to his accounts, — and, at the same time, declaring, 
concerning the author of those dying declarations, that he 
[Mr. Lowell] '' has never discovered any thing indicating in- 
sanity in the deceased," m^Aow^ suggesting that other per- 
sons had long felt assured of it. 

The particular kindness to me, and to Mr. William Boott, 
ntended by the '^ Reply," is, I presume, (if I rightly inter- 
pret its innuendoes,) that Mr. Lowell's efforts, by establishing 



716 



the fact of suicide, tended to prevent " any vulgar ru- 
mours " that we had crept into Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
chamber, at night, and assassinated him in his bed. But 
was Mr. LoweWs testimony necessary for that ? Accord- 
ing to Dr. Jackson, he and Mr. Lowell " found Mr. Boott's 
corpse lying on the bed, under such circumstances, and 
with such accompaniments, as showed that he died by 
his own hands." [L. p. 187.] Now, I am unable to see, why 
the same sight, with the testimony of the witnesses in the 
house, who first found the corpse in that situation, would 
not have satisfied a commonly intelligent jury of the same 
fact ,• since it was so plain, by mere ocular inspection, to 
Dr. Jackson and Mr. Lowell. 

The truth is, that there is not one particle of testimony, 
given by Mr. Lowell, accoj-ding to the official report, which 
was legal evidence of any thing material to be proved, except 
as it bore on the question of sanity. In that view, it was quite 
material for him to state, as he did, that he had known the 
deceased for nearly thirty years ; that he had, formerly, been 
in business with him ; that the '• deceased was in the habit 
of consulting witness about his affairs more than any one 
else ;" and that he '•' has never discovered any thing indicat- 
ing insanity in the deceased;" [B. App. p. 59.] and it was 
quite immaterial to have added the further information, giv- 
en to the jury, which does 7iot appear in the ofiicial report, 
except as it tended to account for the fact of a suicide from 
some other cause than mental derangement. Mr. Lowell 
knew nothing else, touching the subject of inquiry, which 
the inhabitants of the house did not know better, except his 
own possession of a letter, and of a will, which would speak 
for themselves ; and these he did not allow to speak. But, 
since it is suggested, that this was all done from the over- 
flowings of kindness, to rescue me from the danger of an in- 
dictment for murder, perhaps I ought to respond with heart- 
felt gratitude for the preservation of my life ; and my lack 
of that sentiment can only be set down for another proof of 
the singular perversity and hardness of heart, which the 



717 



"Reply" has found out to be among my distinguishing 
qualities. 

There is one little error, in my report of what happened at 
the inquest, as derived from Mrs. Lyman, which I am bound 
to correct, according to her request, in the letter heretofore 
mentioned. [Ante, p. 68.] My former account was as fol- 
lows : — 

" Mr. Dexter obtained for me the official report of the evidence at the 
inquest, — a copy of which is annexed. (App. No. 42.) It will be 
observed, that Mrs. Lyman's testimony, as there recorded, is, ' that 
the deceased, John W. Boott, is her brother, and that she resided with 
him ; — has resided loith him since March, 1844; — never has discov- 
ered any thing like insanity in him^ This, of course, would give the 
idea, that she had been in the habit of seeing him constantly during 
the year, and so had means of forming an opinion respecting his state 
of mind. But, on examining the original, I found that a sentence, or 
part of a sentence, following this, was crossed out ; the words, however, 
were still sufficiently legible to see, that it was the beginning of a 
statement qualifying the last remark, and to the effect, that she had 
not seen her brother, or had any communication with him, during the 
whole year. On inquiry of Mrs. Lyman, I learnt, that, when she 
had made that statement, and was proceeding farther to show how 
little opportunity she had had of discovering marks of insanity, if it ex- 
isted, (for in truth, she had hardly seen her brother for many years,) 
she was interrupted by a remark of Mr. Lowell's, that he supposed 
that irrelevant ; and, consequently, she forbore to speak of the con- 
duct of the deceased towards herself, feeling that it would be discredit- 
able to her brother's memory, (except as evidence of insanity,) and 
being told that such matters need not be stated. The sentence, how- 
ever, which she had begun, or a part of it, had been already written 
down by the foreman, and she requested, that, if it was immaterial, it 
might be left out. It was accordingly crossed out, and she proceeded 
as her testimony now stands in the report. If the inquiry, thus opened 
by the witness, had been pursued, instead of being suddenly stopped, 
and proper questions had been put to her, to draw out what she knew, 
she would have been obliged, though reluctantly, to state facts, con- 
cerning the conduct of the deceased towards herself, which every ju- 
ror would, probably, have thought quite unaccountable, except on the 
idea of a partial insanity. All this, however was shut out." [B. p. 
155.] 

Mr. Lowell denies having interrupted Mrs. Lyman, [L. p. 
186,] and denies having done any thing to influence the ver- 
dict of the jury, except testifying as his duty required. [L. p. 
2L] On this point Mrs. Lyman corrects me, as follows: — 



718 



" Page 155, you say, I was interrupted by Mr. L. This is wrong. 
1 replied to the juror, who questioned me, that / had lived in the 
house a year with Wright, and did not believe him insane. I then 
turned to Mr. Lowell, and said, * perhaps I should state on what terms 
I had lived there.' Mr. Lowell said ' it did not hear upon the case.^ I 
added, during the year, I had never seen my brother. The juror re- 
peated — ' Never seen your brother for the whole year ?' — I said ' No/ 
•—and, perceiving great astonishment manifested by the jurors, and 
fearing to do Wright any harm, 1 begged to have no record made 
of the fact." 

The reader will judge how material this correction is ; and 
whether Mr. Lowell's saying, when appealed to, that the ex- 
traordinary terms, on which Mrs. Lyman had been permitted 
to live in the house, " did not bear upon the case," does not 
justify the substance of my charge ; namely, that, by his in- 
terference,— ^though, as it now appears, upon a question of 
advice put to him by the witness, and not by an actual in- 
terruption, — ^he did, upon his own responsibility, cause the 
exclusion of pertinent evidence of a series of facts, strongly 
tending to prove the insane condition of the deceased, con- 
trary to the mere opinion of a witness, who, though living 
in the same house, had not seen him for a year, and had 
conversed with him hut once, I believe, for sixteen years ! 
Yet, says Mr. Lowell, " It is utterly untrue, that I inter- 
fered with, or attempted to influence, that verdict at all, ex- 
cept by my own testimony, under the obligation of my 
oath!" [L. p. 21.] 

I will now complete the sum of my errors, in reporting 
Mrs. Lyman, so far as she has informed me. The following 
is my former account of my recollection of her statements of 
certain conversations with Mr. Lowell : — 

" We did so, and found Mrs. Lyman at the house, and two female 
friends with her. The conversation turned, among other things, upon 
the inquest, which, Mrs. Lyman said, was held about four o'clock; and 
that she and the two women (meaning the servants,) and Mr. 
Lowell, had been examined ; and that Mr. Lowell produced the letter. 
I asked what letter. She said the letter which Wright had written 
the night before. I said you must be mistaken about that, for Mr. 
Lowell told me, at two o'clock, that there was a letter, supposed to 
have been put into the post-otiice, but that nobody had got it. Mrs. 
Lyman replied, '' it was to Mr. Lowell himself, and he had it at the 



719 



inquest." Being still incredulous, I asked whether she was present 
when Mr. Lowell testified, and saw the letter herself. She said, no, 
hut that, after the inquest, Mr. Lowell told her about it, and told her 
some things that were in the letter. I asked what they were. She 
said, " I was charged in the letter with being in the house as a spy, 
and you with placing me here for that purpose.'' She was at that 
time entirely ignorant that the letter contained a will ; and could 
recollect nothing more of its contents, as stated by Mr. Lowell. She 
afterwards told me, that Mr Lowell said it was rather incoherent — an 
expression, which, at a subsequent interview, he was unwilling to 
admit that he had used, preferring then to say, vague and indistinct^ 
[B. p. 148.] 

Mrs. Lyman's correction is as follows : — 

"A more important mistake occurs on page 148. The facts, after 
my examination, are, that Mr. Lowell came to me, and said, ' The in- 
quest is over — the verdict, suicide.' He then told me he had received 
a letter, written by Wright the night previous, and in reply to my 
question, he added, that the letter was a long one — that it was a re- 
view of the family quarrels from the beginning, — that Wright charged 
me with being a spy in the house, placed there by you, — that you were 
not an honest man, though not pecuniarily dishonest, — and that he 
dwelt upon his grievances very much. Upon my asking the general 
tone of the letter, he said it was rather incoherent. I never heard, 
till sometime afterwards, that the letter had been produced at the in- 
quest ; and you then told me what the coroner told you, as stated in 
the book. I left the room as soon as my examination closed, and no 
letter was seen while I was there. These are serious mis-statements, 
so far as I am concerned. I have my own notes to prove my accu- 
racy, and the statement of J. W. B.'s letter, put down from memory, 
which Mr. Thwing confirmed as to substance. Upon it is Wright's 
refusal to read it." 

To explain the latter part of Mrs. Lyman's statement, the 
reader should know that a letter, prescribing certain condi- 
tions, on which Mrs. Lyman was to be received into her 
mother's house, was written by Mr. Boott to her, about a 
year before his death. This letter, after reading, she was re- 
quired to return to him, with her assent to the conditions, 
subscribed at its foot. Having no copy of the letter, she 
wrote down, soon after, as well as she could from memory, a 
statement of its contents, which she sent to her brother, with 
a request that he would examine it, and certify it to be sub- 
stantially correct, if it was so. But Mr. Boott refused even 



720 

to read the paper, and sent it back to her, with a memoran- 
dum to that effect endorsed upon it. So that Mrs. Lyman 
was left without any evidence of the contents of a paper of 
conditions, which she had been required to subscribe, and 
by which she was expected to govern herself, except her own 
memory, and that of her friend, Mr. S. C. Thwing, to whom 
Mr. Boott had read the original. Was this, by the way, the 
conduct of a sane man ? 

In my foregoing report of Mrs. Lyman's statements to me, 
the only substantial error appears to relate to the fact of the 
production, at the inquest, of the letter, which Mr. Lowell had 
just received from Mr. Boott. It now appears, that Mrs. Ly- 
man did not know, at the time of our conversation, whether 
it was produced there or not, and did not state to me 
that it was, although, it seems, I made that inference from 
something that was said. But, as to what Mr. Lowell said, 
respecting the contents and character of the letter, it appears 
that I at least did not overstate Mrs. Lyman's report of it. 

It further appears, that Mrs. Lyman, while anxiously en- 
deavouring to correct errors, still insists that Mr. Lowell, origi- 
nally, said, that the letter was '' rather incoherent." This, IMr. 
Lowell afterwards desii'ed to qualify, by substituting the 
words " vague and indistinct." But his position in the 
^' Reply" is, that this letter, (which we are not permitted to 
see,) is proof of the sanity of its writer, — Mr. Lowell, of 
course, fathering, by adoption, the truth of its charges, since 
nobody imputes want of veracity to Mr. Boott. Upon the 
subject of the truth and rational character of the charges, I 
shall, presently, "enlighten Mr," Lowell. [L, p, 69,] 

It appears, too, that I was mistaken in supposing that Mr. 
J. Wright Boott's paper of conditions prescribed, in terms, 
that Mrs. Lyman should live by herself, in her own apart- 
ments, and hold no communication whatever with him. 

This paper I never saw, till it was printed by ]\Ir. Lowell ; 
and, although extraordinary enough in other respects, and 
containing matter, which strongly intimates that intention, it 
does not appear to contain such a condition, in express terms^ 
This is another of the statements of my former pamphlet. 



721 



which I was requested by Mrs. Lyman to correct. I accord- 
ingl}^ do it, now, in her own words, written hefore the '■•Re- 
vhf (in which the letter of conditions was printed,) had made 
its appearance, and, of course, while Mrs. Lyman had nothing 
to make the correction by but her own memory, and the mem- 
orandum abc ve mentioned, which Mr. Boott refused to read. 
By that refusal, he undoubtedly meant that she should under- 
stand, that he did not intend to hold any communication with 
her, either verbal or written. The following is the cor- 
rection, made by IMrs. Lyman : — 

'' This, [my above-mentioned statement] is also wrong, not as to the 
requirements, but, as to their being in the paper. It was at the time 
of his visit to me, at Miss Lane's, that he made them^ 

The reference is to a visit at the boarding-house where 
Mrs. Lyman then lived, (the first and only meeting of the 
parties for many years,) when the terms of Mr. Boott's con- 
sent to the admission, she sought, under her mother's roof, 
were verbalh?- made known. Of these terms the greater part 
were, afterwards, reduced to writing by Mr. Boott, and sign- 
ed by Mrs. Lyman on his requisition. His state of mind, 
perhaps, did not permit him to perceive how inadequately he 
had expressed himself, in the v/riting, on the point of total 
non-intercoUiSe j but Mrs. Lyman, to whom that condition 
had been verbally made known, as the basis of the ar- 
rangement, felt herself equally bound by it ; and he, also, 
did not forget to act upon it in its strictest sense. 

This, I be -ieve, discharges my whole duty of correction, on 
Mrs. Lyman's behalf; and the reader may now judge, from 
the several corrections made, here and elsewhere, how far Mr. 
Lowell's assertion is likely to be true, that he is " authorized 
by Mrs. Lyman to contradict nearly every thing, stated as on 
her authority in Mr. Brooks's pamphlet." [L. p. 140.] 



722 



CHAPTEE LXVI. 

MR. Lowell's conduct in relation to the last letter of 

THE deceased. 

This letter Mr. Lowell has steadily refused to show, or 
read, to me ; but not, it appears, to all other persons. 

He tells us, that it is ''written with great calmness, as he- 
fitted the occasion, and evinces no aberration of mind." [L. 
p. 160.] 

" The occasion" was this. The writer was on the point 
of taking his own life in a most appalling manner. This hap- 
pened at night, in the dwelling house of his mother, of which 
the only other inmates were a widowed sister, (Mrs. Lyman,) 
and some female domestics. Was it not, by the way, an in- 
sane idea of preparing as shocking a spectacle as possible 
for the spies and enemies, by whom he believed himself to be 
surrounded, which prompted that form of suicide in that 
place ? This, however, is only a part of the general ques- 
tion of his insanity, not yet before us. At present, I con- 
fine myself to the letter, which this " occasion" produced, 
and to the conduct of Mr. Lowell concerning it. 

We have seen, in the last chapter, what Mr. Lowell told 
]\Irs. Lyman, respecting its tenor, immediately after the in- 
quest ; namely, '' that the letter was a long one ; that it 
was a revieio of the family quarrels from the hegiiining ; 
that Wright charged me [Mrs. Lyman] with being a spy in 
the house placed there hy you, [Brooks ;] that you [Brooks,] 
were not an honest man, (though not pecuniarily dishonest ;) 
and that it dtoelt upon his grievances very much.'''' In re- 
spect to " the general tone of the letter, he said it was rather 
incoherent. '''' [Ante, 719.] 

This, (excepting the remark about its incoherency,) was 
the first account of the letter, which reached me. I heard 
it from Mrs. Lyman, when I called upon her, between nine 
and ten o'clock of the evening of the inquest : and the 



723 



same account, substantially, was given, that same evening, by 
Mr. Lowell himself, to me and to Mr. William Boott, when we 
called upon him, immediately after leaving Mrs. Lyman. [B. 
p. 149.]" 

It now appears, by abundant evidence, heretofore detailed, 
[Ante, pp. 113, 114,] that Mr. Lowell, in fact, produced the 
letter at the inquest, and there, without handing it to the 
jury for inspection, either stated, or read from it, the writer's 
expressed hope that Mr. Lowell might not think the worse 
of him for the method, he was about to take, ''to end his 
Avretchedness." That, Mr. Lowell said, was "all that bore 
upon the case ;" that the rest of the letter ''related to private 
affairs ;" and that he preferred not to show the letter, " as it 
contained charges, which he [the writer] was not here to 
substantiate." [Ante, p. 114.] 

All this I was ignorant of at the time. I supposed, at first, 
from something, which Mrs. Lyman had said, (though, it now 
appears, she did not intend to convey that impression,) that 
the letter had been handed to the jury ; but I also took it for 
granted that the jury must have found the suicide to have 
resulted from_ insanity. The next morning, I learned that 
there had been no such finding ; and, to my surprise, that 
Mr. Lowell had testified to the effect that he had never had 
the least reason to think the deceased of unsound mind. But 
I was, on the same day, assured by him, that nohody had seen 
the letter hut himself] and this, for the moment, of course, 
dispelled ni}^ previous idea that it had heen shown to the 
jury. 

This assurance from Mr. Lowell was in answer to my ver- 
bal request that he would permit me to see a letter, which, he 
had said, contained dishonourable charges against me, and 
which, he had also said, was written by a sane man. 

I now extract from my former pamphlet, as follows : — 

" His answer was, that he thought he ought not to show it ; that 
nohody had seen it hut himself; and that he did not attach the least 
importance to what was said concerning me. Nothing more passed 
between us at that time ; but, on reflection, I was not satisfied with 
the position of the thing, and determined to make a formal request, 
which I did, the next morning, by letter, as follows : — 



724 



"Maech 9, 1845. 
" My Dear Sir, — The letter, which Mr. J. W. B( ott wrote you 
on the last evening of his life has, as you have informed me, several 
allusions to myself. As this letter is known to be in existence, 
although you have assured me that no one, has seen it hut yourself, it 
would afford me satisfaction, in the peculiar circumstances of the case, 
to be allowed to peruse it. Will you let me know, by the bearer, 
whether I may be allowed to do so ? 

With great regard, your ob'd't, 

EDWARi> Brooks. 

" To this I received a prompt answer, as follows : — 

" Dear Sir, — I am not prepared, at present, to consent to your 
seeing a letter, which Mr. Boott, at so solemn a moment of his life, 
wrote to me, without expressing a wish that it should be communi- 
cated to any one. It is written with great calmness, as befitted the 
occasion, and evinces no aberration of mind. 
I am, truly, your ob. sv., 

J. A. Lowell. 
" Sunday morning, March 9th, 18-15." 

^•' Being still more dissatisfied, after this explicit declaration of the 
sanity of the letter, in Mr. Lowell's opinion, I consultefl Mr. William 
Boott, and finally concluded to state the case to Mr. Franklin Dexter, 
as a friend, and to be governed by his opinion. I did so. Mr. Dex- 
ter thought, that I was entitled, under the circumstances, to see the 
letter, or at least to know, precisely, what it said concerning me, and 
that Mr. Lov/ell, on reconsideration, could not, in justice to me, re- 
fuse it ; and he undertook to see that gentleman in my behalf. He 
did so, and the result of the interview was, that Mr. Lowell declined 
showing the letter, either to me, or to Mr. Dexter, as my friend, who 
asked it in order that he might judge for me, whether i: required any 
notice. Mr. Lowell's alleged ground of refusal was, that it came to 
him confidentially ; that it related to family matters, w_iich had been 
closed, and ought not to be re-opened ; and that, althongh he himself 
considered Mr. Wright Boott perfectly sane, jQi, he ga\ e no weight to 
his expressions concerning myself, because they were such, only, as 
one man was apt to use against another, with whom he had a differ- 
ence ; that the letter produced no effect on his own mmd, and could 
not upon others, as it was, and would he, unseen except hy himself. 
Mr. Dexter then asked Mr. Lowell, whether he woula have any ob- 
jection to making a statement, in writing, to the effect of what he had 
just said, and expressed his own belief that such a statement would 
be entirel}" satisfactory to me, as it would afford me means of contra- 
dicting any reports to my prejudice, by showing that Mr. Lowell him- 
self attached no serious importance to the charges. Mr. Lowell an- 
swered, that he thought he should accede to that course, provided Mr. 
Brooks and Mr. Vv^illiam Boott would agree not to oppc se the probate 
of Mr. lYright Boott's will on the grou ud of his alleged insanity. To this 



725 



Mr. Dexter replied, that he was not authorized to stipulate for either 
of us on that point, but that, from, his conversation with me, he had 
no belief that we had any inclination to disturb the will, and that he 
would confer with us on the subject. The substance of this conver- 
sation I state, of course, on the authority of Mr. Dexter's report to 
me, and it will be found repeated, nearly as above given, in letters 
from Mr. Dexter, referred to below. 

'• The singularity of the condition, now proposed, as a consideration 
for the performance of what I regarded as a mere act of justice to 
myself, on the part of Mr. Lowell, connected with the other circum- 
stances above mentioned, concerning the letter, and concerning what I 
had heard of the testimony before the jury, (though I had no idea, 
until more than a year after, of the extent, to which Mr. Lowell had 
gone,) made me desirous, before giving an answer, to know, more par- 
ticularly, what the finding of the coroner's jury was, and upon what 
evidence it was grounded. Yf ith the view of ascertaining this, Mr. 
Dexter called, at my request, upon the coroner, and obtained a copy 
of the official report of the evidence, and also had some conversation 
with him on the subject, in the course of which the coroner stated, 
that the letter in question was exhibited to him hy Mr. Lowell, at the 
time Mr. Lowell had called upon him to procure an inquest ; that he 
(^the coroner) read the greater part of the letter, and was 7iot restrict- 
ed from rending the whole ; and that, among other things, it contain- 
ed a statement, that the writer had been driven to the act of self- 
destruction by unjust accusations of mismanagement of his father'' s 
estate. 

" This, when reported to me, I thought gave a graver aspect, and 
more importance, to the case, than any thing I had before heard, at the 
same time that it was, to my own mind, additional evidence of the in- 
sanity of the deceased. Mr. William Boott agreed with me in this 
opinion, and that any condition, as to the probate of the wall, which 
might debar us from bringing the question of the testator's sanity to 
a legal test, while Mr. Lowell asserted it, and while a letter from the 
testator, containing so serious a charge against both of us, not only 
existed, but had been shown, was a wholly unreasonable thing for Mr. 
Lowell to ask. Mr. Dexter concurred in this view. We, therefore, 
instructed him to say, in our behalf, that w^e must decline pledging 
ourselves, under these new circumstances, to any particular course 
concerning the probate of the will, and must request once more, 
since the letter had been shown to one other person, at least, that we, 
or some friend in our behalf, might be permitted to see it. This Mr. 
Dexter did, in writing, as appears by the annexed copy of his letter 
to Mr. Lowell, dated March 11, 1845." [B. pp. 149-152.] 

LETTER FROM E. DEXTER to J. A. LOWELL. 
[B. App, p. 60.] 

Boston, March 11, 1845. 
Dear Sir: 

You will remember, that, on Sunday, I called on you in behalf of 
Mr. Brooks, to repeat his request that he might see the letter, which 



726 



Mr. J. "W. Boott addressed to jou just before his death. You de- 
clined complying with this request, for reasons which you then stated. 
I then suggested to you tlie measure of your writing a letter to Mr. 
Brooks, stating that Mr. J. W. Boott's letter contained no charge 
against him, except such expressions as might naturally follow from 
the excitement of a personal difference, and which produced no effect 
on your mind. I stated to you that I was not authorized by Mr. 
Brooks to propose that measure, but that it occurred tome as one that 
would, probably, be satisfactory to Mr. Brooks. You answered, that 
you thought you should accede to that course, provided Mr. Brooks 
and Mr. W, Boott had no design of opposing the probate of Mr. 
Boott's will, on the ground of alleged insanity. To this I replied, that, 
although not authorized to answer for those gentlemen, on that point, 
I had no belief that either of them had the least inclination to disturb 
the will. There our interview ended, as I understood, with the ex- 
pectation that I should inform you what were Mr. Brooks's and Mr. 
Boott's intentions, as to the probate of the will. 

Since that interview, I have learned from, the coroner, that Mr. J, 
W. Boott's letter was exhibited by you to him, when you called on 
him to procure an inquest to be holden. The coroner further inform- 
ed me, that he read the greater part of the letter, and was not restrict- 
ed from reading the whole, and that, among other things, it contained 
a statement that the writer, Mr. J. W. Boott, had been driven to the 
act of self-destruction by unjust accusations of mismanagement of his 
father's estate. This I reported to Mr. Brooks, and have since had 
an interview with him and Mr. W. Boott, who now request me to say, 
in their behalf, that, under the present aspect of the case, they must 
decline pledging themselves to any course in regard to Mr. J. W, 
Boott's will. They further request me, again, and under these new 
circumstances, to repeat the request, that they, or some friend of theirs, 
may see Mr. J. W. Boott's letter ; — but, if you should still decline ac- 
ceding to that request, that you will preserve the letter, as it may be 
important to them hereafter. 

I will add, that, as you referred me on Sunday to Mr. Loring, as 
your counsel, if I came in the capacity of Mr. Brooks's counsel, (an 
office which I then hoped to be able to avoid,) I have since called on 
Mr. Loring, who will state to you what was said between us. 

I am, respectfully, yours, &c. 

F. Dexter, 

J. A. Lowell, Esq. 

The answer to this letter was by Charles G. Loring. Esq. 
in behalf of Mr. Lowell. As it is a long one, I extract only 
the most material parts, referring to my former pamphlet for 
the residue : — 

EXTRACT FROM Mr. LORING'S ANSWER. 

" Upon reading to me this letter, [Mr. Dexter's,] Mr. Lowell ex- 
pressed the greatest surprise at these allegations, — assuring me that 



727 



the letter had never been out of his hands ; that he had only read 
such portions of it to Mr. Pratt as were necessary to show that Mr. 
Boott had intended and inflicted his own death, and which he consid- 
ered it his duty to read to him for that purpose, — the office of the 
coroner being to ascertain whether the deceased came to his death 
by his own hands, or those of another ; and that the letter contains no 
such statements as represented in your note ; and that he never made, 
or suggested, any proposal, or willingness, that the letter should be 
read by Mr. Pratt, excepting in replying to his request that he (Mr. 
L.) would have it with him at the inquest, when he assented to 
producing it there, if called for ; understanding, as is obviously true, 
that the jury would have the right to demand its production and pe- 
rusal, if judged necessary. And further inform.ed me that, at the in- 
quest, the letter was not unfolded; though, in reply to the inquiry 
whether he had one, he answered in the affirmative, and took it from 
his pocket; the jury thinking it not necessary to require knowledge 
of its contents, excepting in some particulars relating to the question 
of Mr. B.'s self-destruction, which were .stated in the testimony of 
Mr. L., the minutes of which you have seen." [B. App. p. 6 2. J 

Mr. Loriog then goes on to narrate an interview, just held 
with Mr. Pratt, in the presence of Mr. Lowell, in which Mr. 
Pratt admitted that he had said, that Mr. Lowell opened the 
letter in his presence, and read to him some extracts, or re- 
peated some portions of it ; but not that he had heard, or 
seen, any thing in it about me ; that he had told Mr. Dexter, 
and others, that something had been heard by him about dif- 
ficulties in the family, but he could not say whether he got 
the idea from the letter or not ; that Mr. Dexter was mis- 
taken in saying that he (Mr. Pratt) said that he saw or heard 
the greater part of the letter ; that it was a very long letter, 
and very little was read to him ; that he did not know that 
Mr. Brooks's name was mentioned, and had no idea whether 
the allusions were favourable or unfavourable. 

To this Mr. Dexter made a brief reply, the substance of 
which lies in the following sentence : — 

EXTKACT FROM Mr. DEXTER'S REPLY. 

"I now state, in brief, that I am quite sure I reported Mr. Pratt 
correctly, in substance, with the single doubt whether he .said that Mr. 
Boott stated, in terms, that the unjust accusations against him had driv- 
en him to suicide, or whether those accusations were stated in such 
connection as to lead to that inference. If the latter Avas the case, it 
is a mere verbal dijfference." [B. App. p, 64.] 



728 



This terminated all personal applications for the letter. 
Some months afterwards, I learned that Mr. Lowell denied 
ever having said that the letter contained a charge of dishon- 
esty against me. In consequence of this, I applied to Mr. 
Dexter for information of what was said to him, and receiv- 
ed the following answer : — 

LETTER FROM E. DEXTER to EDWARD BROOKS. 
[B. App. p. 64.] 

Boston, Sept. 14, 1845. 
My Dear Sir : 

There cannot be any doubt that the letter, which Mr. J. W. Boott 
addressed to Mr. J. A. Lowell, on the day of his death, contained a 
charge of dishonesty against you ; for, when I called on Mr. Lowell, 
at your request, on the Sunday succeeding Mr. Boott's death, to ask 
that you might s<';e that letter, I made the request to Mr. Lowell, dis- 
tinctly, upon the ground that he had told you that the letter con- 
tained such a charge. I urged, that, after such a declaration from 
him, you had a right to see the letter. Mr. Lowell did not deny that 
the letter contained such a charge, nor that he had told you so ; but 
declined showing it, on the ground that it was confidential, and that 
he had not mentioned to any one else that it contained any charge 
against you. I think it is impossible he could have answered as 
he did, if, in fact, the letter contained no such charge; and I am quite 
surprised that there should be any question of it. 

Mr. Lowell, in the course of the interview, offered to make some 
statement to me relating to the letter, confidentially; but having 
called as your friend, I declined hearing it, if I were not at liberty to 
repeat it to you. 

I do not remember what point he proposed so to state ; indeed, I 
doubt if he went far enough to enable me then to understand. 

On my repeating to him my wish that you might see the letter, or 
that he would give an explanation of its contents, Mr. Lowell said that 
he should not object to saying, in writing, that the letter contained 
no charge against you of dishonesty in pecuniary matters, but only 
such things as one man says of another, with whom he has a quarrel, 
and that it had not produced any effect on his, Mr. Lowell's mind. 
This statement, however, Mr. Lowell said he would make only on 
condition that neither you, nor Mr. W. Boott, should dispute the pro- 
bate of Mr. J. W. Boott's will. 

Yours, very truly, 

Franklin Dexter. 

Edward Brooks, Esq., Boston. 

The reader hardly needs to be reminded that the course of 
events, and the progress of rmiiours concerning the cause of 



729 



Mr. Boott's death, connected with his last letter, compelled 
me to become an opponent of his will, as the only means, 
left, of bringing to a legal trial the question of the sanity of 
the testrtor, and with the purpose of demanding the letter 
from Mr. Lowell, in the probate court, as an important piece 
of evidence. The demand was made, but was resisted, suc- 
cessfully, on technical grounds. I then withdrew my appear- 
ance from the cause ; but Mrs. Lyman, to whom I had as- 
signed eU my pecuniary interest in it, took the cause, by ap- 
peal, to the Supreme Court, and there, by advice of her coun- 
sel, filed a bill of discovery, with a view of obtaining the let- 
ter in aid of her case. But, pending Mr. Lowell's plea to 
that bill, and before it came to a hearing, Mrs. Lyman volun- 
tarily abandoned her suit ; and I was advised that the law 
did not afford me any means of compelling a production of 
the letter. [Ante, Ch. 3.] 

The length, to which Mr. Lowell has allowed himself to 
go towards endorsing the statements and accusations, declared 
by himself to be in that letter, may be judged of, not only by 
the tenor of the ^' Reply," (which, in effect, argues that they 
were well-founded and true,) but, more briefly, by the fol- 
lowing extract from an affidavit sworn to by him in the pro- 
bate court : — 

EXTRACT PROM MR. LOWELL'S AFEIDAYIT. 

" That this deponent verily believes, and has at all times, since 
he first read the same, believed, that, neither in the hand-writing, nor 
in the style, nor in the statements made, nor in the reasoning con- 
tained, in said letter, is there any thing, to the knowledge or belief of 
this respondent, which tends to show that the said John W. Boott was 
not of sound and disposing mind and memory at any time ; but, on the 
contrary, this deponent verily believes, and hath always, since he read 
the said letter, verily believed, that the said letter strongly tends to 
prove that the said John W. Boott was sane when the same was writ- 
ten." [C. App. p. 68.] 

That is, Mr. Lowell could not content himself with simply 
negativing the idea, that any thing in the letter might aid me 
in showing an insane delusion, but he volunteers to declare, 
upon his oath, that, in his belief, Mr. Boott's offensive state- 



730 



ments, as he had reported them, concerning me, strongly 
tend to prove the sanity of the man who made them. In 
other words, he swears, most superfluously, to his belief, that 
these statements are well founded in fact, (without which 
they, certainly, could have no such positive tendency,) and 
the " Reply," accordingly, pretends to make out a reasonable 
foundation for the belief of a sane man that the statements 
were true. When we come to the evidence on that point, 
the reader will have an opportunity to judge, whether this 
affidavit, — as well as the " Reply," — does not " strongly tend 
to prove " that Mr. Lowell was prepared to stick at nothing, 
which might serve a present purpose in this case. But I con- 
fine myself, now, to Mr. Lowell's conduct as a gentleman, 
without inquiring into his private belief, or the foundation of 
Mr. Boott's hallucinations. 

The pertinacious refusal to show me this letter, — ^contain- 
ing nothing, so far as I was informed by Mr. Lowell, but 
family affairs, and statements particularly concerning myself, 
in family relations, — is distinctly admitted ; and we have 
nothing, in the "Reply," but a profession of excellent mo- 
tives, " as usual," to account for it : — 

" I entertained at that moment sincere hopes, that the differences 
existing in the family would soon die out for lack of aliment ; and 
there were passages in this letter tending to irritate the parties, and 
which, for that reason, I was desirous to withhold. My other motive 
was, that the letter contained matter of a strictly confidential charac- 
ter, not relating in any way to these disputes, which I did not feel at 
liberty to disclose. I, accordingly, politely, but steadily, declined to 
exhibit it." [L. p. 160.] 

Now it will be observed, in the first place, that Mr. Lowell, 
at the outset, when deliberately answering, in writing, my re- 
quest to see the letter, did not rest his refusal on either of 
those grounds. The only reason assigned to me, was, that Mr. 
Boott had written the letter, " at so solemn a moment of his 
life," " without expressing a wish that it should be commu- 
nicated to any one^ 

This simple omission of Mr. Boott to express a loish, that 
his letter should be shown to those whom it concerned, was, 



731 



afterwards, magnified by Mr. Lowell, with the progress of the 
pressure for its production, into ideas of special confidence 
and a '' sacred trust," [Mr. Lowell's affidavit, B. App. p. 64.] 
coupled with an assurance, given to Mr. Dexter, " that it relat- 
ed to family matters^ tvhich had been closed, and ought not 
to he reopened.''^ [Ante, p. 724] The "Reply" goes the fur- 
ther length of declaring, now, for the first time, " that the let- 
ter contained matter of a strictly confidential character, not 

RELATING IN ANY WAY TO THESE DISPUTES, which I [Mr. LoW- 

ell] did not feel at liberty to disclose." 

If that were so, why did not Mr. Lowell, at first, say so, in- 
stead of saying '' that it related to family matters, which had 
been closed, and ought not to he reopenedV And, if the 
latter was the ground of the refusal, what had "Ae to do, I de- 
sire to know, with these '-'■ family matters ?" What right 
had he to judge, agoAnst fjiemhers of the family, and to pre- 
elude them from the opportunity of judging for themselves, 
whether these ''family matters" were closed or not, and 
whether they ought to be reopened or not ? We might give 
the greater credit to the sincerity of Mr. Lowell's judge- 
ment, — notwithstanding the exceeding arrogance and imper- 
tinence of assuming to judge for others in matters of this na- 
ture, with which, he says, he had no concern, — if it did not 
appear that he had disclosed more or less of the contents of 
the letter to persons out of the family, and persons not par- 
ticularly entitled to participate in that " sacred trust ;" since 
Mr. Boott, certainly, had not " expressed a wish, that it 
should be communicated " to them. 

Mr. Lowell will, perhaps, say that he has never '' com- 
municated to any one," those parts of the letter, in which 
the sacredness of the trust particularly lay, — certainly not the 
matter, which was " of a strictly confidential character, Qiot 
relating in any way to these disputesy But, why could 
he not have disclosed to me, — a party concerned, — as much 
as he did to others, who were not concerned ? And why 
could he not have allowed me to see those parts of the 
letter, at least, which did relate " to these disputes," and to 



732 



''family matters," particularly implicating myself? Why 
did he not state, explicitly, if such were the fact, that there 
was a portion of the letter, '' strictly confidential," and " not 
relating in any way to these disputes," which he did " not 
feel at liberty to disclose ;" but that " the greater part " of the 
letter, — all I could care to see, — did not lie subject to that 
objection ; and that, reserving the confidential portion, a 
sight, or a copy, of the residue would be quite at my ser- 
vice ? 

But no, — there was another reason, it seems, — not given to 
me, — but which is assigned in the " Reply " as his foremost 
motive. He really hoped, that, by refusing to show me the 
letter, '' the differences, existing in the family, would soon 
die out for lack of aliment ; and there were passages in this 
letter tending to irritate the parties^ and which, /or that rea- 
son^ I was desirous to withhold !" 

Now I invite the reader to review Mr. Lowell's course, in 
this whole business, and to consider how singularly happy 
he was in his choice of means, if the amiable purpose were to 
heal a family dissension. 

Just look at the course taken. Mr. Lowell, first, reads parts 
(as I shall prove,) of this letter to several persons^ v/ho had 
no concern in it. He speaks, again, of the letter, before the 
jury of inquest, as a mysterious production, containing charges^ 
which its sane writer was not there to substanti; ,te ; and 
he connects this with suggestions of ill treatment of the 
deceased, by certain hard-hearted relatives, which led to 
his death. He, next, repeats a portion of the charges to 
m.yself and to Mr. William Boott, and, more at large, to 
Mrs. Mary Lyman, — all alleged conspirators against the 
late Mr. Boott, — all considered by Mr. Lowell to be in a state 
of high exasperation, — and all persons, against whom the 
charges of the letter are supposed to he particularly pointed. 
We, (the conspirators,) are told, that this document contains 
Mr. Boott's '• review of the. family quarrels, from the begin- 
ning," and that " it dwelt upon his grievances very much." 
I am informed, that it accuses me of dishonesty. Mrs. Lyman 
is informed, that she is said to have acted the base part of a 



733 



spy in her brother's house ; and we are both mformed, that I 
am declared to have acted the baser part of procuring Mrs. 
Lyman to serve me in that capacity, and of placing her iyt 
Mr. Boott's house for the very purpose ! 

The next step is, that I request permission to see, for my- 
self, whether such charges are really contained in the letter, 
and in what manner, and connexion, they are made. But this 
I am refused, for no better reason, stated to me, than that Mr. 
Boott had not expressed a wish that these matters should be 
communicated to any one ; — that is, the very matters, which 
Mr. Lowell had, nevertheless, just told to the persons implicat- 
ed, and probably to other persons also. I repeat my request, 
through a friend, and am then told, by Mr. Lowell, — who is 
entirely disconnected from the family, — that he does not think 
it right to let me see this letter, because it relates to family 
matters, which he judges, had been closed, and which he 
judges, ought not to be reopened. What is the forewarned 
consequence ? I am driven to oppose the probate of Mr. 
Boott's will, as the only means of getting at the letter, and 
proving that its writer was under insane influences. What 
happens then? The gentleman, who refuses me a sight of 
the letter, constantly avers, and finally swears, that the per- 
son, who made these accusations, was, — notwithstanding all 
appearances to the contrary, — perfectly clear and sound in all 
his perceptions and ideas, when he made them, and that the 
letter, itself, " evinces no aberration oi mind," but, on the 
contrary, " strongly tends to prove that the said John W. Boott 
was sane, when the sam.e was written." 

At last, I discover what this gentleman is said to have de- 
clared to the jury of inquest ; and I then call upon him, to 
know whether my information is correct, assuring him that, 
if it is, there must have been some mistake in his statements, 
prejudicial to me, which I wish to correct. W^hat does he 
then ? Why he positively refuses even to inform me what 
his testimony ivas ; still more to admit ihQ possibility of any 
mistalce, on his part, or to afford me the slightest chance, so 
far as depends upon him, of correcting the mistake, if I could 
show one. W^hat follows then ? I am thereby driven, since I 



734 



have no other remedy, to vindicate myself from unfounded 
aspersions by a guarded statement in print, for the informa- 
tion of my friends. And, thereupon, Mr. Lowell comes out 
with such a publication as I now ajiswer ; spreads it most ex- 
tensively ; and compels me, in self-defence, to disclos3, and 
prove, many painful matters of family concern, which, in 
my former pamphlet, I had laboured, I thought successfully, 
to keep out of sight, for the sake both of the dead and of the 
living. 

Could any thing have been more cunningly devised to 
hush up all causes of trouble in the Boott family, if that were 
the object, and put a stop to all further talk about " these 
disgraceful feuds ?" 

What, especially, could have been better contrived to allay 
irritated feelings, and dispel that " exasperation " against the 
deceased, which Mr. Lowell professes to have discovered in 
certain members of the family, (who, he asserts, did not, as 
they pretended, honestly believe in Mr. Boott's insanity,) 
than to communicate, verbally, just so much as was communi- 
cated, and no more, of the contents of the letter to the exas- 
perated parties themselves, refusing them, at the same time, 
permission to see it, and assuring them that its statements are 
strong evidence of sa^iity 7 

Can it be, that so wary and intelligent a person, as Mr. John 
A. Lowell, should really have acted thus, from the motive 
he alleges ? and that he should have done so purely for the 
sake of other persons, without any interest of his own ? 

Did he not, let me ask, rather flatter himself, that the con- 
tents of such a letter, " written at so solemn a moment," if 
cautiously whispered about, would tend, with very many 
persons, to account for the suicide, in a way to quiet all no- 
tions of insanity ? Did he not expect, that a knowledge, 
by the persons implicated, that he possessed such a letter, 
would tend to awe them into silence on that topic, from fear of 
disagreeable consequences to themselves, which the publicity 
of the letter might occasion ? And was it not with a view to 
that species of intimidation, that he voluntarily stated so 



735 



much of its contents as he did state to Mrs. Mary Lyman, 
from whom, he well knew, they would naturally reach me ? 
Is not this view strengthened by the course he took after- 
wards ? For, — when he saAv, that, instead of being alarmed, 
I was disposed, after full reflection, to push the matter 
to an issue by urgently insisting upon a sight of the letter, — 
he then, instead of representing its statements, as he had 
represented them at first, to be of a very serious char- 
acter, endeavoured to repress my urgency by assurances " that 
nohody had seeii the letter hut himself; and that he did not 
attach the least importance to what was said concerning 
me." 

However the reader may answer these questions to his own 
mind, I have no doubt that Mr. Lowell did hope, and confi- 
dently expect, that, by withholding from me, as far as possi- 
ble, all information and knowledge of the wrong he had se- 
cretly done me, and making it difficult, he perhaps thought 
impossible, for me to bring to light those matters, which were 
essential for my vindication, while the principal evidence of 
them was locked up in his own keeping, I should, finally, be 
obliged to succumb, and leave him master of the field, with 
every thing settled his own way, and shut up against further 
inquiry. 

Counting upon his position, and influence, and the prejudice 
he had created, he flattered himself that public opinion, 
and a large part of the Boott family, were so firmly secured on 
his side, that I could not stand up against the combination of 
forces, which, without making himself visibly active, he 
had concentrated against me ; and, in which movement, he 
thought his own dexterity could not be tracked. It has re- 
quired, certainly, some patience and perseverance to unravel 
his web. So far as I have now gone, I trust the work has 
been effectually done ,• and, when the remaining evidence 
shall have been shown to the reader, my belief is, that the 
true cause, which has aggravated so immeasurably the un- 
happy condition of the Boott family, will stand exposed in 
the person of Mr. John A. Lowell. 



736 



A friend, who knew, at the time, something of the course of 

affairs relative to the settlement of accounts, and something 
of my dissatisfaction with Mr. Lowell, even before I had ar- 
rived at the point of utter distrust, remarked to me, when I 
first saw him after Mr. Boott's suicide, which he considered 
as settling, of course, the long agitated question of insan- 
ity, — '' That's a bad job for John A. Lowell." If it should 
prove so, I pray the reader to remember, that it will only 
be because he has chosen, in the hope of sheltering him- 
self at any hazard, to persist in attempting to make it 
''a bad job" for me. Avery little yielding at the outset, 
accompanied by a little more frankness on his part, would, 
probably, have prevented all the ill consequences, to him- 
self, which may grow out of this controversy. On my own 
account, I ought not, perhaps, to regret the course he chose 
to take, after I first called upon him for a sight of Mr. Boott's 
letter ; since I am now entirely sensible, that, — had he given 
me, at once, on Mr. Dexter's suggestion, such a paper as 
I should then have been willing to receive in lieu of seeing 
the letter, and had he dealt fairly by me, concerning his 
communication of the contents of that letter to other per- 
sons, — ^it would have been impossible for me to escape the 
consequences of prejudicial opinions, which, I now plainly 
see, took their origin, mainly, and derived their strength, 
wholly, from him. 

To return then to the comments of the ^' Reply." In con- 
sidering them, the reader will not forget, that, within twenty- 
four hours after the inquest, Mr. Lowell, to qniet my request 
for a sight of the letter, assured me, that nobody had seen it, 
but himself. This appears, not only by the statement of my 
former pamphlet, which stands uncontradicted, but by the 
language of my contemporaneous letter to Mr. Lowell, of 
March 9, 1845, repeating his then recent assurance. '' As 
this letter [Mr. Boott's] is known to be in existence, although 
you have assured me that no one has seen it hut yourself, it 
would afford me satisfaction, in the peculiar circumstances 
of the case, to be allowed to peruse it." His answer did not 



737 



deny, or question this statement. [Ante. p. 724.] Again, the 
" Reply " admits, that, when Mr. Dexter repeated the request 
in my behalf, Mr. Lowell repeated to him that he "had not 
shoivft, and did not intend to show, to a7iy one, the letter 
written to him by Mr. Boott on the evening before his death." 
[L. p. 166.] And, once more, the "Reply," speaking to its 
readers, declares that " the letter had 7iever been read to any 
one.'' [L. p. 167.] 

The averment, therefore, was, and is, perfectly distinct and 
unqualified, that the letter had neither been sJioivn nor read to 
a single person. Yet, it appears, distinctly, that it had been 
either shown, or read, — parts of it, at least, — to the coroner, at 
his office, when Mr. Lowell called on him about holding an 
inquest ; that it was, afterwards, produced at the inquest, and 
a portion of it, there, either read, or repeated, to the jmy ; 
and I shall presently prove, that portions of it, and, I believe, 
those most offensive towards me, had, also, been read to other 
persons, who stood in no such official relation, and had not 
the right, which members of the family had, to know what 
concerned the family alone. 

First, however, let me point out what the " Reply " asserts, 
respecting the interview with Mr. Dexter : — 

" Within two days of Mr. Boott's death, which occurred in March, 
1845, Mr. Franklin Dexter had announced to me, that he had been 
retained as counsel for Mr. Brooks and Air. William, Boott, and that 
his clients were determined to have an inquiry into the question of 
Mr. Wright Boott's sanity. No idea of di.^puting the probate of his 
will was then entertained ; and it was obvious to me, that the inquiry 
spoken of by Mr. Dexter could not fail, ultimately, to assume the 
form of a written or printed vindication of Mr. Brooks's conduct in 
his relations with Mr. Boott. Nor do T now believe, that any other 
form of inquiry was seriously contemplated." [L. p. 2-3.] 

The further account is as follows : — 

" In my interview with Mr. Franklin Dexter, on the Sunday pre- 
ceding INLr. Boott's funeral, he stated to me the determination of his 
clients to have an inquiry instituted into the question of Mr. Boott's 
sanity. / replied that I did not see how that could be done unless 
€a;;?c/r/e, or unless it were by disputing the probate of IMr. Boott's 
will, of which 1 was the executor. Wiien, soon afterward, Mr. Dexter 

93 



738 



proposed that I should write to Mr. Brooks, stating that I had not 
shown, and would not show, the letter, and that it had produced no ef- 
fect upon m}^ own mind, I answered, that, if I were assured it was not 
the design of Mr. Brooks and Mr. William Boott to place me in an 
antagonistical position to them, by disputing the probate of a will, 
which it would be my duty to defend, I would willingly give to Mr. 
Brooks the assurance proposed ; otherwise I must decline. Mr- 
Dexter replied, that in this he thought me quite right, but that he had 
no idea that his clients entertained any such intention." [L. p. 159.] 

The object of these statements seems to be to corroborate 
the idea, held up in the " Reply," that there was an uncalled 
for hostility of movement on my part, and a combined move- 
ment, between me and Mx. William Boott, growing out of 
our alleged conspiracy with Mrs. Lyman and Mr. Robert C. 
Hooper, against Mr. J. Wright Boott, and out of the feelings of 
animosity towards him, imputed to each of us, as existing in 
his life time, following him into his grave, and seeking vent 
in some excuse for a publication to defame his memory. 
This is one of the cold-blooded slanders, which Mr. Lowell, 
presuming upon his position, has ventured to publish of per- 
sons holding a fair standing in society, in the hope to save 
himself, by making those, whom he has injured, odious. 

Li aid of that view, the " Reply" insists on representing 
Mr. Dexter as having acted, in the only interview he had 
with Mr. Lowell, in the avowed capacity of counsel, and as 
counsel /or both Mr. William Boott and myself, and as be- 
ginning the interview by amiouncing the determination of 
" his clients^'' to institute an inquiry into Mr. Boott^s sanity ; 
to which Mr. Lowell represents himself as repl^ang in the 
manner above shown ; and represents Mr. Dexter as declar- 
ing that he thought Mr. Lowell " quite right," in declining to 
write me such a letter as Mr. Dexter had proposed, without a 
previous assurance that neither I, nor Mr. William Boott, 
would oppose the probate of Mr. J. Wright Boott 's will. And 
the idea of opposing the will is represented as suggested by 
Mr. Dexter's first annunciation. 

Now this account of the interview I pronounce to be es- 
sentially false ; and I shall leave it to the reader to judge 
wethher Mr. Lowell did not know it to be so. 



739 

In the first place, the reader will perceive, that it does not 
conform to the previous contemporaneous account, so far as 
that account went, of the same interview, contained in Mr. 
Dexter's letter, to Mr. Lowell himself, of March 11, 1845, 
above cited. But, on seeing the statements, above quoted 
from the " Reply," on points not distinctly spoken of in that 
letter of Mr. Dexter, and on seeing, also, its statement, else- 
where, about Mr. J. Wright Boott's unwillingness to accept 
the balance of the account, instead of his refusal to adopt 
the account^ I addressed inquiries to Mr. Dexter, on those 
points, to which I received the following answer : — 

LETTEK FKOM EEANKLIN DEXTER to EDWARD BROOKS. 

Beverly, March 15, 1848. 
Dear Sir: 

I have received your note of the 9th inst., inquiring ofinae whether 
certain statements, made by Mr. Lowell in his pamphlet, agree with 
my recollections. 

My recollection of those matters is very distinct, and is as fol- 
lows : — 

I never had but one interview with Mr. Lowell, respecting the mat- 
ters in question, and that was on Sunday afternoon, next after Mr. J. 
W. Boott's death- (March 9th, 1845.) On the morning of that day, 
you applied to me to call on Mr. Lowell on your behalf, and repeat 
your request to see Mr. J. W. Boott's letter. I consented to do so. 
You requested me to consider myself as your counsel in so doing. 
This I declined ; but said I would go as your friend. I did so, and 
stated your request. Mr. Lowell's first remark to me was, that, if I 
came as your counsel, he could not converse with me, but must refer 
me to his counsel, Mr. C. G. Loring. I answered that I was not your 
counsel, and we had a long conversation. I had not then seen, or had 
any communication from, or on behalf of, Mr. William Boott, in rela- 
tion to any of the matters spoken of in these pamphlets. Merely for 
the sake of distinctness, I add, that I did not announce myself to Mr. 
Lowell as your counsel, or that of Mr. William Boott, until my letter 
to him of March 11th, 1845, by the last clause of which it will appear, 
that I did not so consider myself, at the time of my interview with Mr. 
Lowell, That letter is printed in the appendix to your pamphlet, 
page 60. 

When you called on me, on Sunday morning, you told me, that, if 
you were not allowed to see Mr. J. W. Boott's letter, you would, to 
protect yourself against the report of the imputations said to be con- 
tained in it, show that Mr. Boott was insane. After Mr. Lowell had 
refused the request that you 7night see that letter, L told him that such 
would be your course, as a consequence of that refusal. I in no other 
manner announced, at that interview, your determination, and in no 



740 



manner whatever that of Mr. William Boott, to dispute Mr. J. W. 
Boon's sanity. If Mr. Lowell refers to my letter of March llth, 
1845, for these communications, he is mistaken as tothefme; and, as 
to the manner, my letter will speak for itself. 

Mr. Lowell certainly stated to me, in that interview, that Mr. J. W. 
Boott, when the account, made up by Mr. Lowell, was first presented 
to him, said that he would never sign an account that brought his 
brothers and sisters in debt to him. It was 7iot, that he would not 
accept the balance, but that he would not sign the account, — and I so 
reported it to you. Yours, truly, 

Franklin Dexter. 

Edward Brooks, Esq. 

There are some other facts, connected with these state- 
ments of the " Reply," which deserve notice. While it was 
understood that Mr. Lowell's pamphlet was in preparation, 
Mr. Dexter informed me, that Mr. Lowell had, through a 
friend, exhibited to him the manuscript of that part of the 
" Reply," containing the account of the interview between 
them, for the purpose of ascertaining whether it agreed with 
Mr. Dexter 's recollections. Mr. Dexter farther informed me, 
that, finding the account erroneous, he had so told Mr. Loiv- 
ell's friend, and had given him a corrected statement, in writ- 
ing, to be communicated to Mr. Lowell, closing that state- 
ment with the remark, that he understood that Mr. Lowell 
had so communicated to him all that lie intended to publish, 
relating to that interview ; and that Mr. Lowell had made 
no reply to this communication. 

After hearing this, I had no apprehension that, in relation 
to that interview, Mr. Lowell would publish any thing, to 
which he and Mr. Dexter were not agreed, nor any thing 
which had not been previously communicated to Mr. Dexter. 
I was surprised, therefore, on tlie appearance of the pamphlet, 
at seeing what its statements were ; but more so, when Mr. 
Dexter informed me, soon after, that that portion of it (the 
same which I have above extracted from page 159,) appeared, 
notwithstanding his corrections, to be, word for word, as it 
was originally shown to him in manuscript ; and that anoth- 
er part of the pamphlet (the sam_e which I have above ex- 
tracted from page 2,) contained other material, and highly 
incorrect, statements of what took place at that same inter- 



741 

view, which had never been communicated to him. There 
can be no mistake about this, because J. have, now, in my 
possession, the original corrections of Mr. Lowell's statement, 
as they were dictated by Mr. Dexter to Mr. Lowell's friend, 
and, in the hand-writing of that friend, were left with him, 
to be communicated to Mr. Lowell. The paper was, after- 
wards, returned to Mr. Dexter, at his request, and has, since, 
been handed to me. 

It is not for me to complain of the want of gentlemanlike 
com'tesy, and even of common civility, towards Mr. Dexter, 
manifested by this entire neglect of corrections, furnished 
upon Mr. Lowell's own application, without even notifying 
to Mr. Dexter that he dissented from them ; but I think I 
may be permitted to say, that Mr. Lowell's course, in this 
matter, pretty clearly indicates that the purpose of his appli- 
cation to Mr. Dexter " was not to elicit the truth,'''' [L. p. 3.] 
but to secure beforehand, if possible, ^confirmation by him of 
a statement, the truth of which Mr. Lowell himself at least 
doubted about, but which he was determined to publish at 
any rate, because it best suited the view of the case, which 
he intended to hold out to the public. 

His publishing a further statement, which he had not ex- 
hibited to Mr. Dexter, relating to the same conversation, was 
neither more nor less than a breach of what every gentleman 
would, under like circumstances, consider as a clearly implied 
promise. But what a trifle is that, compared with the effect 
intended to be produced by the ''• Reply !" 

This last-mentioned statement [L. p. 2.] contains, among 
other things, the distinct assertion that Mr. Dexter, in that in- 
terview, announced himself as m,y counsel, and the counsel 
of Mr. William Boott ; an assertion, which Mr. Dexter's let- 
ter to me, above printed, shows that he would instantly have 
contradicted. Did not Mr. Lowell know that he would con- 
tradict it ? It is at least clear, that the assertion is not true. 
It is true, that, on requesting Mr. Dexter to enter upon a 
troublesome office, for my benefit, I was willing and desir- 
ous to place it on the footing of })rofessional employment. 
But Mr. Dexter, considering the nature of the service, which 



742 



was rather an affair of honour and courtesy between gentle- 
men, than a matter of law, positively declined going to Mr. 
Lowell otherwise than as a friend, and presented himself dis- 
tinctly in that capacity, as now appears, to Mr. Lowell. It 
was Mr. Lowell himself, who brought counsel into the case, 
by referring Mr. Dexter to Mr. Loring, as the counsel of Mr. 
Lowell ; and it was not until two days after that interview 
of March 9, that Mr. Dexter, finding that no friendly arrange- 
ment could be made, first consented, in consequence of that 
reference by Mr. Lowell to his counsel, to act, thenceforward, 
as my counsel. 

Mr. Dexter not only went to Mr. Lowell, at the outset, as a 
friend, merely, but he went /or me alone, and so represented 
himself to Mr. Lowell. Mr. Dexter had not seen Mr. Will- 
iam Boott, as he states. I had not undertaken to speak for 
that gentleman. He had never requested me to act for him 
in this matter. I was looking at it, solely, as my own per- 
sonal affair. 

The statement, that Mr. Dexter began by announcing an 
intention of Mr. William^ Boott and m^yself to oppose the 
probate of Mr. J. Wright BootVs will, if the letter were not 
shown to us, is just as untrue as the statement that he an- 
nounced himself as our counsel. There had not only been 
no concert, or consultation even, on that point, between me 
and Mr. William Boott, but the idea of opposing the probate of 
Mr. J. Wright Boott's will had never entered my head, nor I 
believe that of Mr. William Boott. It was first suggested by 
the remark of Mr. Lowell, as reported to me by Mr. Dexter, 
and by me to Mr. William Boott. The only idea, I had en- 
tertained, before that suggestion, of a means of showing the 
insanity of Mr. Boott, in answer to the imputations of his let- 
ter, was by causing the coroner's jury to be resummoned, for 
the special purpose of hearing evidence on that point, in order 
that their verdict might be amended in this particular. What 
other step I might have been driven to take, had that measure 
been found impracticable, is more than I can say ; but, as I 
formerly remarked, the plan of a limited publication was first 
determined upon when I saw the turn which my correspond- 



74" 



O 



ence with Mr. Lowell had taken, in Decemher, 1846, and 
when I was advised that there was no other form of remedy 
left for me. But, — however Mr. Lowell may have misinter- 
preted Mr. Dexter 's remark, that a refusal to show me the let- 
ter would lead me to show that Mr. Boott was insane, — it is 
clear, from Mr. Dexter's report of the interview, that the re- 
mark was made in reply to Mr. Lowell, in order to make him 
sensible of the probable consequence of his refusal, and not 
byway of minatory announcement, to begin with, in the ca- 
pacity of counsel, as the " Reply " pretends. 

In the true spirit of friendliness, Mr. Dexter, when he found 
Mr. Lowell determined not to show the letter, proposed, as an 
accommodation between me and Mr. Lowell, that Mr. Lowell 
should simply state to me, in writing, what he had himself 
stated, verbally, to Mr. Dexter, as part of his excuse for refus- 
ing it ; namely, that he gave no weight to Mr. Boott's expres- 
sions concerning me, because they were such, only, (so he 
then said,) as one man is apt to use against another, with 
whom he has a difference ; that the letter produced no effect 
on his own mind, and could not upon others, as it had been, 
and would be, unseen, except by himself] and that it contained 
no charge against me of dishonesty in pecuniary matters. 
But even such a writing as that, — so perfectly harmless to Mr. 
Lowell, if he were pursuing a fair and open course, — so useful 
as it might be to me, in contradicting unpleasant reports, and 
setting matters right between rae and certain members of the 
family, whose opinions had been prepossessed by Mr. Lowell, 
— that gentleman could not bring himself to grant, unless he 
could make a good bargain by it ! Mr. Dexter's language, in 
his above cited letter of September 14, 1845, is, — " This state- 
ment, however, Mr. Lowell said he would make, only on con- 
dition, that neither you, [Brooks] nor Mr. W. Boott, should dis- 
pute the probate of Mr. J. W. Boott's will!'' 

Could any thing be more unreasonable than such a condi- 
tion ? — particularly when extended to Mr. William Boott, for 
whom Mr. Dexter was not then acting, and who had made 
no request to see the letter, and whose name had not even 
been mentioned, so far as appears, in the conference ? 



744 



The requisition was, that — not only I, the applicant for a 
courtesy, which ahuost amounted to a right between gentle- 
men, but — another gentleman also, who had asked nothing 
of Mr. Lowell, should consent to surrender our pecuniary in- 
terests, as heirs at law of the late Mr. J. Wright Boott, and 
tacitly confirm a will, which gave the property to others, 
(part of it to Mr. Lowell,) and that, by suffering the will to 
pass unquestioned, we should impliedly admits that its author, 
and the author of a letter imputing disgraceful conduct to me, 
and probably to Mr. William Boott, was, as Mr. Lowell asserted 
him to be, a perfectly sane man when he made these charges, 
— though this was contrary to our known belief, long main- 
tained against much opposition. The admission, indeed, 
might have a material beariag on the past settlement of ac- 
counts, and on all the questions in the late controversy con- 
cerning that settlement, so interesting to Mr. Lowell. And 
what was to be the consideration for so important a conces- 
sion ? The granting of the courtesy sought ? Not at all ; — • 
but the very much smaller one of a writing from Mr. Lowell, 
to the effect that all Mr. Boott had said, in the letter, did uot 
alter his opinion of me ! 

Still, had my information of Mr. Lowell's proceedings con- 
tinued, when this proposal came to my ears, with time for an 
answer, just what it was when Mr. Dexter suggested it, I 
should, for the sake of doing what 1 could towards healing 
the family dissension, have readily agreed, with Mr. Dexter's 
approbation, (for I had placed myself in his hands,) to the 
terms proposed. I should have accepted the very moderate 
certificate of character ^ which Mr. Lowell was willing to give 
on that condition, trusting that the weight of his good opinion 
with certain members of the family, and with many other 
friends, might serve to shield me, in some degree, from the con- 
sequences of evil rumours and misconstructions. My belief is, 
that Mr. William Boott would have agreed to it also ; for 
neither he, nor I, had any wish, on our own account, and for 
our own benefit, (as our subsequent assignment to Mrs. Lyman 
proves,) to disturb Mr. J. Wright Boott's disposition of his 



745 



property ; and neither of us was, at that time, authorized to act 
for any other person in this matter. 

But, before there was opportunity to consult Mr. William 
Boott, and to return an answer to this proposal, the very 
next thing I learn is, that the coroner knows the whole drift of 
the letter, Sind says he had seen it, and had read the greater part 
of it. Nor was I at all satisfied that this was not substan- 
tially true, by the circumstance that the coroner, when 
interrogated by Mr. Lowell and his counsel, in the presence 
of a third person, who was writing down his answers, (all 
which was without notice to me or my counsel,) took back, or 
qualified, what he had just said to Mr. Dexter, in a manner to 
excuse hihiself, in some degree, for so great an indiscretion, 
admitting, however, still, that the letter was shown, and more 
or less of it read to him, by Mr. Lowell. 

Perceiving, thus, that the contents of the letter were already 
abroad among strangers, — to what extent I could not tell, — 
hearing the rumours prevailing, concerning the cause of Mr. 
Boott's suicide, and the existence of such a letter quoted in 
proof of it, — I determined to act on Mr. Lowell's suggestion, 
and to oppose the probate of the will, since it was then thought 
to be too late to reopen the inquest, and there was no other 
way of trying, judicially, the sanity of Mr. Boott. 

Mr. Lowell makes great complaint of all this. He says 
that the notice of my change of course was an imputation that 
he had made false representations. Well, I must confess that 
I think it was. He adds, ''I was exceedingly astonished at 
such a charge, conscious as I was that the letter had never 
been read to any oneP^ [L. p. 167.] Yet, he himself exhib- 
its, in his '• Reply," the coroner's examination, as taken down 
at Mr. Loring's office, admitting, — not indeed that he had 
heard " the greater part " of "a very long letter," but — that 
a " very little was read to him." How much may have been 
in that little depends, entirely, (since we can not confide 
in Mr. Lowell,) on the degree of credit that may be given 
to the coroner's statement to Mr. Loring, contradicting his 
statement to Mr. Dexter, — which was, '-that he read the 

94 



746 



greater part of the letter^ and was not restricted from reading 
the whole, and that, among other things, it contained a state- 
ment that the writer, Mr. J. W. Boott, was driven to the act 
of self-destruction by unjust accusations of mismanagement 
of his father's estate ;" — the very idea, which as it turns out, 
Mr. Lowell had communicated to the coroner's jury. 

At any rate, the coroner's story, even as reported by Mr. 
Loring, was inconsistent with Mr. Lowell's unqualified assur- 
ance to me, and to Mr. Dexter, that nobody^ hut himself had 
ever seen the letter. 

The comment of the '' Reply " is : — 

" One of these two things, therefore, must have occurred ; either Mr. 
Dexter must have misapprehended what the coroner had said to him, 
(and, though I should repose as much confidence in Mr. Dexter's ex- 
actness as in that of any one, this obviously may have been the case,) 
or else the coroner made two statements, within twenty-four hours, on 
the same point, diametrically at variance with each other. In either 
case, the imputation against me falls to the ground ; in the first case 
it is refuted ; in the second, one statement of the coroner neutralizes 
the other, and my own remains uncontradicted. It then became the 
bounden duty of Mr. Brooks and Mr. William Boott, as gentlemen 
and men, of honor, to tender to me an apology for having doubted my 
word. They not only did not do this, but they proceeded, at once, to 
take iki^ very course, with respect to the probate of Mr. Boott's will, 
which had been indicated by Mr. Dexter as a consequence of the dis- 
covery of my supposed misstatement. It is perfectly obvious, that 
they shut their ears to any justification of the course I had pursued ; 
and this could have arisen only from anecessity of having some oster- 
sible antagonist, in assailing Mdiom they might less invidiously attack 
the memory of Mr. Boott." [L. p. 168.] 

Now, in respect to the suggestion that the coroner's two 
statements neutralized each other, and therefore left Mr. Low- 
ell's statement unimpaired, I have only to quote, anew, that 
gentleman's own admission, through his counsel, in a letter 
printed above. '^ Mr, Lowell expressed the greatest surprise 
at these allegations, [of Mr. Dexter,] assuring me that the letter 
had never been out of his hands ; that he had only read such 
portions of it, to Mr. Pratt, as were necessary to show that Mr. 
Boott had intended and inflicted his own death ; and which 
he considered it his duty to read to him for that purpose.^' 



747 



[Ante, pp. 726-7.] But the question is not of Mr. Lowell's 
duty to the coroner, but of the faith to be reposed in his 
assurances. When he assured me that no one had seen the 
letter, hut himself^ did he not mean that I should also under- 
stand that nobody had heard it read 7 Did he expect me to 
understand, only, that it had not been '' out of his hands V or 
that he had " read only such portions of it''"' as he thought it 
his ^^duty^'' to read, in order to enlighten the coroner con- 
cerning the cause of Mr. Boott's death ? 

In respect to the suggestion of a probability that Mr. Dex- 
ter might have misapprehended the coroner, I have only to 
refer, once more, to Mr. Dexter's own language, while the 
matter was yet fresh in his recollection, in answer to Mr. Lo- 
ring's suggestion to the same effect ; — '' I am quite sure that 
I reported the coroner correctly," &c. [Ante. p. 727.] 

I should, certainly, have been very happy to apologize to 
Mr. Lowell for having doubted his word, had he succeeded in 
satisfying me that I had not very good reason to doubt it. If, 
for example, he had told me, in the outset, that nobody had 
seen the letter, or heard any part of it read, except the coroner ; 
and that the coroner had not been informed of any part of its 
contents, except the declared intention of Mr. Boott to take 
his own life ; and the coroner had not contradicted that state- 
ment ; or had placed himself in a position to make contradic- 
tory statements from him clearly of no value ; or if it had ap- 
peared probable that Mr. Dexter had misunderstood the coro- 
ner, absolutely and entirely, about the letter, — there might 
have been a case for me to apologize upon. I should have 
been very prompt to make such amends, had I appeared, 
either to myself, or to Mr. Dexter, to be under any sort of mis- 
take. But, unfortunately for Mr. Lowell, such was not the 
case. Mr. Dexter was very sure of the substantial effect of 
what the coroner had said to him; and he was a gentleman, 
on whose punctilious exactness, in a delicate personal matter, 
I knew I could rely as much as upon that of any man living. 
That the coroner had contradicted himself, to some extent, 
was apparent enough, it is true. But what of that? Even 
his qualified statement to Mr. Loring admitted that he had 



748 



seen the letter, and had heard part of it read, and Mr. Lowell, 
through his counsel, had admitted the same thing himself! 

This was quite the reverse of what I had been given to 
understand by Mr. Lowell ; and, unless Mr. Dexter were sup- 
posed to have made up the coroner's statement to him, there 
could not be a shadow of doubt, that the coroner either learn- 
ed from the tenor of the parts of the letter, read to him by Mr. 
Lowell, that Mr. Boott was driven to suicide by unjust ac- 
cusations, or else that he was so informed, by Mr. Lowell, 
of that supposed cause of Mr. Boott's death, in connexion 
with the parts of the letter read to him, as to lead him to in- 
fer that such was the effect of the letter. Now will Mr. 
Lowell be good enough to inform us how the coroner got 
such an idea, concerning either the tenor, or effect, as the 
case may be, of that letter? How did he get the idea that 
Mr. Boott was driven to suicide hy false accusations 1 Did 
he invent it ? Certainly not. He got it either from the let- 
ter^ or, in the same way that the jury got it, from the state- 
onents of Mr. Lowell, connected with the mysterious lan- 
guage of a letter, which, Mr. Lowell said to the jury, con- 
tained charges against somebody, of such a character that the 
letter ought not to be read, the writer not being there 16 
substantiate them. He never seems to have thought of the 
better reason that the parties accused were not there, to be 
heard in their defence. 

It is true that I did not know this at the time. But it was 
plain, from what I did know, that there had been false play, 
(although I had not then the least idea of its extent;) and 
it was plain that, upon the precise point of Mr. Lowell's 
having shown the letter, either Mr. Lowell had not told me 
the literal truth, or he had told me what was true to the letter 
only, and false in its effect. From that moment, I do not 
hesitate to say, my confidence in Mr. Lowell was utterly lost ; 
and every successive discovery of fact, from that time to 
this, has only tended to satisfy me that I was right in the 
judgement I then formed, surprising as it may have been to 
many persons, before the appearance of my present proofs. 

But one of the most curious facts in the case is, that Mr. 



749 



Lowell, himself, has now heen compelled to publish conclu- 
sive evidejice, that what he told me, about no one's having 
seen the letter, was both literally and substantially untrue. 
I refer, now, not to the coroner^ s statement, either to Mr. Dex- 
ter or to Mr. liOring ; neither do I refer to the declarations of 
the jurors ; but to the carefully written statement of Dr. 
James Jackson, — printed by Mr. Lowell for the express pur- 
pose of clearing himself from another suspected falsehood, of 
which the evidence then pressed strongly upon him. The 
statement of Dr. Jackson, — which, when once sought for and 
obtained, Mr. Lowell could not venture either to correct, or 
to misprint, or to suppress, — while it tends to exculpate Mr. 
Lowell from my suspicion that he had the letter in his pocket, 
during his conversation with me, (the point for which the 
statement was sought,) convicts him, positively, and beyond 
escape, on the other and more material point of his having 
unnecessarily communicated more or less of the contents of 
the letter. I quote, as follows, from Dr. Jackson : — 

" My brother Patrick went into your house either just before or 
just after me. On my entrance jow told me you had just got the let- 
ter ; and you held in your hand a thick letter ; you were crossing the 
room at the moment ; you then sat down by the window and broke 
the seal of the letter. After looking through the letter hastily, you 
READ TO us SOME PARTS OF IT, — but not the wkok, as I supposed 
and understood at the time." [Ante, pp. 681-2.] 

Now, why did not Mr. Lowell, when he told me, the very 
next morning, that nobody had seen the letter, but himself, 
frankly tell me the fact that he had read ''some parts of it" 
to the coroner ; that he had also read, or repeated, " some parts 
of it" to the jury ; and that he had also read " some parts of 
it" to the two Messrs. Jackson ? What parts of it, by the way, 
did he read to those gentlemen ? Dr. Jackson does not in- 
form us ; and Mr. Lowell informs us only that " the letter had 
never been read to any one .'" But we see what impressions the 
coroner got about the contents of the letter. We see what im- 
pressions the jurors got from Mr. Lowell about the alleged 
'' false accusations" against Mr. Boott, connected with the fact 
of his suicide. I fear that the late Mr. P. T. Jackson, whose 



750 



good opinion was so desirable to all, who had the happiness 
to know him, may have gone to his grave with the belief, 
derived from what he heard of that letter and what Mr. 
Lowell otherwise told him, that I had acted a very wicked 
part in this whole affair, and that Mr. Boott was really 
the victim of a malignant persecution, and not of his own 
insanity. I fear that my friend. Dr. Jackson, may yet live in 
that belief, from the letter, and from statements made to him 
by Mr. Lowell. I have reason to apprehend that many of 
the numerous, respectable, and influential connexions of 
these gentlemen, and of Mr. Lowell, have adopted a like 
opinion, flowing ultimately from him ; although they are all 
persons, like Dr. Jackson, too cautious, too kind, and too sen- 
sible of the nature of the charge, to say much on so painful 
a subject. 

I believe that I am indebted to the author of the " Re- 
ply" for all this weight of sentiment against me, as well 
as for like opinions formed by certain members of the Boott 
family, who have pinned their faith upon Mr. Lowell as the 
great vindicator of truth ! The public at large, nay, my own 
personal friends, were beginning to imagine that there must 
be something in it, for no other reason than because such 
opinions were entertained in such quarters, and, especially, 
because so very considerable a person as Mr. John Amory 
Lowell was every where quoted for authority. 

Mr. Lowell! ''Poor Wright's steadfast friend !" (So Dr. 
Boott calls him.) [L. p. 170.] The common friend of the whole 
Boott connexion! (So he describes himself) Intimately ac- 
quainted with all the facts, and especially with the accounts ! 
Perfectly disinterested ! The best judge in the world of Mr. 
Boott's entire sanity ! A gentleman, who, from his position 
and character, could have no conceivable motive, or desire, in 
this business, except to establish the fact, out of pure love for 
truth, that one much beloved friend, in the perfect possession 
of his faculties, had most deliberately killed himself, writing 
'' with great calmness, as befitted the occasion," and that other 
friends, not less valued, — so ''endeared" to him that he can 
scarcely yet shake off the " lingering tenderness." — had wick- 



751 



edly conspired to harass an unfortunate relative to death by 
false accusations, and other ceaseless acts of cruelty and perse- 
cution ! Was it not time for me to speak for myself, and 
show the realities of this case ? 

One of Mr. Lowell's comments on the doubting of his 
word, above complained of, seems, after all we have seen, to 
border on the ridiculous. He says, by way of introduction, 
that, — 

"Mr. Brooks, by putting the correspondence of December, 1846, 
at the beginning of his book, produces the impression that this was 
our first intercourse upon the subject. Had he narrated events in 
their chronological order, it would have been apparent that he had, 
by his own course of conduct, forfeited all right to call upon me for 
an explanation." [L. p. 174.] 

Mr. Lowell's regard for ''chronological order" we have 
already seen somewhat illustrated. We shall see some more 
striking exhibitions of the same valuable quality, when we 
come to scrutinize his array of evidence to prove a conspiracy. 

The comment, however, which I intended to quote, is 
made in reference to my former remark, that " I hold him, 
not excused, as a gentleman, for refusing to inform me what 
his testimony was, when asked for the declared purpose of 
enabling me to correct erroneous impressions, produced by it, 
to my serious detriment." [B. p. 162.] On that point he ob- 
serves that, — 

" Mr. Brooks forgets, that, nearly two years before, he had put him- 
self in the position of having doubted my word, and, when the evi- 
dence, on which that doubt rested, had been, if not refuted, entirely 
neutralized, of having offered no apology for so insulting a doubt. 

" There cannot be two opinions, among men of honor, as to bis hav- 
ing forfeited the right of claiming any explanation from me." [L. 
p. 174.] 

How unfortunate that this should not have occurred to Mr. 
Lowell at the time of our correspondence ! How much more 
dignified would it have been totally to decline answering on 
that lofty ground, about which •' there can not be two opin- 
ions among men of honor," instead of first undertaking, 
" frankly," as he says, [B. p. 15.] to make the explanation, 



752 



and then shuffling and evading the pinch of the question, 
in the remarkable manner, which that correspondence shows, 
while he concludes by " respectfully " requesting to be ex- 
cused from any further participation " in any of the issues 
growing out of these difficulties!" [B. p. 18.] 

But let me not do Mr. Lowell the injustice to conceal his 
avowed motive here. He declares that, — 

" A desire of preventing, if still possible, the puhlic disclosure of 
these disgraceful feuds, and a lingering tenderness towards him, [viz. 
Edward Brooks,] alone prevented me from treating his application 
as it deserved !" [L. p. 174] 

This ^' lingering tenderness '' I have mentioned so often, 
that every body must see how fully it is appreciated ; — and I 
am sure nobody can doubt the sincerity of Mr. Lowell's desire 
to prevent a public exposure. He appeals, however, to the 
court of honour ; and there I am perfectly content that he 
should take his trial. 



CHAPTER LXVII. 

AN OUTLINE OF MY ANSWER TO SUNDRY NEW CHARGES MADE BY 

MR. LOWELL. 

I have done with the subject of accounts, and with the 
various collateral topics, connected with that subject by the 
allegations or suggestions of the " Reply." Several ques- 
tions, concerning Mr. Lowell's personal conduct at, or soon 
after, the time of Mr. Boott's death, have also been disposed 
of, upon the idea that they were more properly connected 
with the settlement of the accounts, than with any other 
matter in controversy. Indeed, I have already covered the 
whole original ground of controversy, between me and Mr. 



753 



Lowell, with the exception of certain statements and evi- 
dence, contained in my former pamphlet, tending to jnstify 
my opinion that Mr. Boott was partially insane, as well as to 
show that I had reason to be greatly surprised at Mr. Lowell's 
remarks upon several occasions. 

If Mr. Lowell had contented himself with merely answer- 
ing that evidence, without converting his answer into an at- 
tack, — if he had only endeavoured to show, by other evidence, 
that my opinion of Mr. Boott's insanity was ill-founded, — this 
abstract question is of so little importance, iur my view of the 
case, for the justification of my own conduct, that I might, 
perhaps, now consider myself sufficiently discharged of my 
obligation to expose the true character of the '' Reply." 

But, Mr. Lowell has been pleased to make his defence of 
Mr. Boott's sanity a pretext for assailing, further, the con- 
duct and motives of myself and others in our family rela- 
tions. The '' Reply" has given birth to a new set of 
charges, having little or no connexion with the question, 
whether I had falsely accused Mr. Boott of mismanaging his 
father's estate. That idea, conveyed to the jury of inquest 
without my knowledge, and under the other circumstances 
stated, was the original calumny, which has been, heretofore, 
the main ground of our controversy. But Mr. Lowell has 
endeavoured, with some adroitness, to shift the issue. Gluite 
another, and a wide, field of inquiry is now opened by the 
''Reply." The interior concerns and mutual relations of 
the Boott family, generally, are brought into the discussion, 
by charges of personal quarrels among them, attributed, entire- 
ly, to the scandalous ill conduct of certain members ; namely, 
Mrs. Brooks and myself, Mrs. Lyman, and Mr. William Boott, 
who are supposed to have co-operated in purposes of mis- 
chief, — Mr. Robert C. Hooper, though not a member of the 
family, occasionally lending his aid. We are accused, conjoint- 
ly, of originating, fomenting, and keeping alive, the family 
dissensions, by our meddlesome and quarrelsome disposition, 
directed particularly against Mr. J. Wright Boott, without 
reason or provocation. 

95 



754 



An answer to this sort of attack, manifestly, involves a gen- 
eral view of the conduct of Mr. J. Wright Boott towards oth- 
ers, and of others towards him, in matters distinct from his 
accounts and executorship. The question of Mr. Boott's 
soundness of mind, instead of the question of his good man- 
agement of property, is, here, the connecting thread, which 
draws together many painful topics. They are of a kind, 
which I should gladly be excused from discussing ,* especially 
as a satisfactory view of them requires the printing of private 
letters, not relating to business transactions, nor intended to 
be read, except by those to whom they were addressed, and 
which none of the family can desire to see in print. 

Mr. Lowell, alone, would scarcely induce me to take a step 
so repugnant to my feelings. But, unfortimately, some of 
my near connexions have been so blinded by his influences, 
as to place in his hands a large part of a confidential family 
correspondence, — thus furnishing him with delicate weapons, 
of which he has not scrupled to make a very bad use. In 
one or two instances, only, has he printed from this budget the 
whole of any one letter ; and never enough of consecutive 
correspondence to give a tolerably fair view of the surround- 
ing circumstances, or of the feelings and motives of the 
writers. In general, he has selected single sentences only, or 
detached expressions, or very short passages, out of a large 
number of letters, and, — ^by arranging them, with entire disre- 
gard of ''chronological order," so as to produce the most 
striking effect, in reference to the one-sided view, which he 
thinks it for his interest to present, — he has succeeded in pro- 
ducing impressions, not merely imperfect, but positively er- 
roneous, respecting the actual state of facts before Mr. Boott's 
death ; and impressions highly disreputable to myself, and to 
several other persons. Certain members of the family have, 
inconsiderately, supplied him with the means to do this 
wrong. This is very unfortunate ; but it is not the whole of 
the misfortune. They and other members of the family, by 
their acquiescence in what he has done, permit themselves to 
be held out as giving their countenance, and approval, to rep- 
resentations of bad feeling, and unprovoked ill conduct, on 



755 



the part of brothers and sisters, towards a brother deceased, 
and towards brothers or sisters yet living, which, if these 
same members of the family were witnesses in the case, I am 
sure, the most of them would never support by their own 
statements, — nor am I ready to believe that any one of them 
would, — however their feelings may, formerly, have been en- 
listed against the idea of Mr. Boott's unfitness to be the fam- 
ily trustee. Mr. Lowell does not hesitate to make open boast 
of his support, by this larger portion of the family, as he rep- 
resents, in a view of facts, which I must show to be essen- 
tially erroneous. His misrepresentations are, tacitly, allowed 
to stand for truths. The mere glimpses of a family corre- 
spondence, which he has exposed, seem, in a degree, to cor- 
roborate them. And readers of the ''Reply" rely upon its 
statements, in this purely domestic part of the case, only be- 
cause they are supposed to be upheld by the family ; for these 
statements relate to matters, of which Mr. Lowell, obviously, 
can have little or no personal knowledge. 

What then am I, — a party thus aggrieved, — to do ? I have, 
it is true, no access to that part of the family correspondence, 
of which Mr. Lowell is the sacred depository. But I have, in 
my hands, original letters, written contemporaneously with 
the occurrences and occasions, of which they speak, by sev- 
eral of the very persons, who allow themselves to be publish- 
ed as the supporters of Mr. Lowell's views. These letters 
will, in some cases, show a directly opposite state of facts, to 
that which has been asserted, and in others will show senti- 
ments, quite the reverse of those attributed to the writers by 
Mr. Lowell. What alternative is there, but to exhibit this 
evidence ? I confess, at present, I see none. I move to such 
a task very reluctantly ; but, if a part of the family, in real 
or apparent conjunction with Mr. Lowell, choose to make the 
discussion of such topics inevitable, I can only say that I 
shall choose to make it thorough, so far as may be needful to 
exonerate myself and Mrs. Brooks from the unfounded impu- 
tations, which have been, thus publicly, cast upon us. 

It is a further subject of regret to me, that this will, obvi- 
ously, require so large an addition to the many pages already 



756 



printed, that the whole can not be brought within the com- 
pass of a convenient volume. The number of my present 
page makes this perfectly apparent ; and it leads me to de- 
part, in one particular, from my original design. My inten- 
tion was, to place no part of my answer to Mr. Lowell in the 
hands of my friends, until I was ready to show them the whole 
of it, in print. This, as it was entirely arranged and Avritten, 
I hoped to have done, long ago, and in less space than I have 
already occupied. But I have found, by experience, much 
greater delay than I anticipated, incident to the carrying of 
such a book through the press, with its numerous references 
and quotations, as well as the many corrections, and some- 
times additions, which suggested themselves during its pro- 
gress. So much time has thus already elapsed, and some 
ardent persons have thought proper to express so much as- 
surance that I could have nothing effective to show, in dis- 
paragement of Mr. Lowell's triumph, that I confess myself 
unwilling to retain the portion of my answer now printed, 
(a subject distinct and complete in itself,) for a period so much 
longer as, I now perceive, will be needful in printing, with 
due care, that which remains. I have concluded, therefore, 
to close this volume with a general view of the state of the 
controversy, as it now stands, leaving my comments on 
other parts of the '' Reply" to be the subject of a supplement- 
ary communication, unless some unforeseen circumstance 
should, in my judgement, adequately relieve me from the 
necessity of another disagreeable step. 

It seems, however, to be due to all parties, and no more 
than fair to Mr. Lowell, that some idea should be given, at 
this time, of the course I intend to take, and some brief out- 
line of the principal points, which I am prepared to establish. 

In my former pamphlet, I made a prominent point of Mr. 
Boott's insanity. I had, and have, a deep conviction of the 
fact. It was, in truth, one of my governing motives for in- 
sisting on a change of the trusteeship, in 1844. But, my at- 
tempt to satisfy my former readers of that apology for Mr. 
Boott is put, by Mr. Lowell, on much the same footing with 
my impeachment of his good management as a trustee. It 



757 



is treated as an indignity, — an outrage on the memory of the 
dead. He, who holds himself out as the fast friend of the 
deceased, makes every effort to disprove, what he affects to 
consider a cruel calumny, instead of an excuse ; so that it has 
become no less apparent to every reader of the '' Reply," 
than it was to the jury of inquest, '^ that Mr. Lowell was, 
extremely anxious to have Mr. Boott made out a sane man." 
[Ante, p. 78.] Why, he best knows ; though others are at 
liberty to guess. The only reason assigned is regard for 
truth and his friend's memory! 

We are assured, also, that " six out of the eight surviving 
members of Mr. Boott's family did not believe in his insanity, 
and desired no verdict contrary to the truth ;" [L. p. 21.] and, 
of course, if Mr. Lowell is authorized, as he assumes, to repre- 
sent their present opinions, they do not desire, now, that any 
one should be satisfied that Mr. Boott was afiiicted with any 
kind, or degree, of mental derangement, being satisfied them- 
selves that the truth is the other way. The only consequence 
of this is, that they, and Mr. Lowell, must account for Mr. 
Boott's conduct, which I shall be obliged to prove, on such 
other theory as they please. My business will consist in dis- 
proving the only theory, which the " Reply" has put forth. 

To Mrs. Brooks, and myself, and Mr. William Boott, and, I 
presume, I may safely add Mrs. Lyman, according to my im- 
pression of her present views of the case, (and this constitutes 
about one half of the now surviving brothers and sisters,) 
it certainly would be a gratification to find others coinciding 
with us in opinion on the point of partial insanity. This 
portion of the family would gladly have seen, at the time 
of the inquest, and would gladly see, now, that charitable 
mantle, — so generally, and so broadly, thrown over the grave 
of the self-destroyer, — drawn, in this instance, over the 
errors and failings of one, who was once a much-loved 
brother, and who is described by Mr. Lowell as ''a gifted 
but unfortunate son." [L. p. 23,] Three of us, at least, be- 
lieved, and believe, that such a finding, by an intelligent 
jury, after careful examination of the facts, would have 
been the true and sure quietus of a most unhappy family 



758 



dissension. But if we, who are said to be actuated by nothing 
but feelings of resentment towards the deceased, stand alone 
in this desire, — if all the rest of the family, who are called 
to mourn his shocking end, together with their and his warm- 
hearted and disinterested friend, the intimate of thirty years,— 
at least in his business transactions,— think and desire other- 
wise, I know not wh)'' I should go much out of my way, in 
a personal controversy with this gentleman, to thwart his and 
their desires. 

While certain statements, concerning me, attributed to Mr. 
Boott, derived an especial value and importance, in my judge- 
ment, from Mr. Lowell's endorsement of them, I thought my- 
self particularly bound to show, that they originated in 
nothing but the insane delusions of their author. The facts, 
which I have since discovered, respecting Mr. Lowell's con- 
duct, and especially the character of his " Reply," have re- 
lieved me, I am happy to say, from any undue solicitude on 
that score. The statements, alluded to, stand, now, in my 
estimation, and I think they will in that of every unprejudiced 
reader, with no additional weight derived from Mr. Lowell's 
adoption of them. They are, simply, Mr. Boott's expressions, 
thrown out in a certain frame of mind. As such, I have no 
difficulty in dealing with them upon the facts, which can 
be proved, whether he is reputed to have been sane or insane. 
I am, therefore, equally content to meet the case, made against 
me in the " Reply," upon either alternative. E,eason enough 
has, I trust, been shown, to justify the effecting of Mr. Boott's 
resignation of the care of the family property, even admitting 
him to have been not less sane than Mr. Lowell ; and, in re- 
spect to all the other charges, brought against myself or Mrs. 
Brooks in the " Reply," whether upon the authority of its 
author, or that of the late Mr. Boott, I do not intend that our 
personal vindication shall be left dependent, in any degree, 
upon the reader's belief in Mr. Boott's insanity. 

I have spoken of that question as a connecting thread, 
which runs through the remaining topics. As such, I intend 
rather to treat it incidentally, in answering Mr. Lowell's com- 
ments, than as the main proposition, which I am bound to 



/ 



769 



establish. Referring to my former pamphlet for the general 
view, which I took of Mr. Boott's mental condition, and for 
a body of evidence in support of it, I shall, now, content my- 
self with taking up, as my texts, certain prominent pas- 
sages and ideas of the " Reply ;" and, in refuting them, I 
shall expose, by the way, its feebleness and insufficiency, as 
an answer to the former evidence of that gentleman's insan- 
ity on certain subjects. 

In the part of the case, which relates to personal conduct, 
Mr. Lowell will find that he does not possess the advantage of 
better means of knowledge than myself, as he did on the sub- 
ject of the accounts. On the contrary, when he was bold 
enough to attempt to found an argument on private history, 
in the domestic circle of the Boott family, — with which, not- 
withstanding his business relations with Mr. J. Wright Boott, 
and latterly with Mrs. Boott, he held very little social inter- 
course, — it will appear that he ventured upon dangerous navi- 
gation, under very poor pilotage, or none at all. Here, at least, 
I am familiar with the passage ; and can easily run his craft 
ashore at every tack. To use his own language,! shall make 
it '' pretty evident that" Mr. Lowell '' has undertaken to 
enlighten the public about transactions of which he never 
knew any thing, or which he has completely forgotten ;" [L. 
p. 109.] the former being, in most cases, the probable truth. 

It will appear, perhaps, that he and certain members of the 
family, contributed to mislead each other. He, certainly, mis- 
led them on some points, and may, to some extent, have been 
misled in turn on others. That is to say, the family, general- 
ly, relied, implicitly, upon Mr. Lowell's assurances that every 
thing, respecting the accounts and the management of \hQ prop- 
erty, was substantially right. Believing this to be so, a small 
portion of the family in this country, (it was confined, origi- 
nally, chiefly to a few ladies,) who were unwilling to admit that 
Mr. Boott was either insane, or otherwise incompetent to be 
the family trustee, or that he had misconducted himself in 
any other respect, suffered themselves to become unduly ex- 
cited about the m.eans taken to cause his resignation, and 
were wrought up into a state of very extravagant sentiment 



760 



and expression, respecting Mr. Boott and his supposed perse- 
cutors. Mr. Lowell found it for his interest, while the settle- 
ment of accounts was an open question, to adopt the views of 
these ladies, or at least to appear to them to adopt their views ; 
and he did so, or pretended to do so, without either knowl- 
edge or inquiry, and without making the fact distinctly 
known to me. Members of the family, abroad, could judge 
of the true state of affairs here only by the representa- 
tions, which reached them from home ; and, among these 
representations, it will be found that Mr. Lowell's carried 
the day. He has contrived, thus far, to maintain, with 
that portion of the family, the ascendency, which his dis- 
interested position originally gave him. After the settle- 
ment of accounts, came the unexpected event of a suicide, 
which it was necessary to account for, without permit- 
ting the idea of insanity to prevail. Then followed the 
litigation respecting the probate of Mr. Boott's will, involving 
the question of his sanity ; and, this having ended without a 
trial in the upper court, and being succeeded by my discovery 
of Mr. Lowell's testimony at the inquest, and by our unsatis- 
factory correspondence, and, consequently, by my former pam- 
phlet, Mr. Lowell has, throughout, found himself in a position, 
which, as he thought, made it for his interest to maintain one 
side of a family controversy, originally espoused by him, 
solely in reference to the settlement of accounts. For the 
sake of maintaining that side, he has gone all lengths in his 
"Reply," without regard to its consequences to those for 
whom he professes so much attachment ; and he has relied, 
for his supposed facts in the domestic history, upon loose and 
erroneous impressions, derived, more or less directly, from the 
most excited and least informed portions of the family ; while 
a few scraps, carefully culled out of a family correspondence, 
ransacked with that view, seem to lend a degree of counte- 
nance and support to his theory. 

The foregoing remarks will serve to suggest, to every intel- 
ligent reader, the general line of my defence against Mr. 
Lowell's latest attack ; but I will now proceed to state a few 



761 



particulars, which I propose hereafter to substantiate, and 
make perfectly clear. 

One object of the " Reply" being to convince its readers 
of Mr. Boott's sanity, and to create a prejudice against those 
who denied it, it is said, — 

" Not a single hurfaan being, having opportunity of judging, and 
whose opinion was unbiassed hy personal resfi7itments, \ms been ad- 
duced as believing in Mr. Boott's insanity." [L. p. 126 ] 

I shall examine that position. 

In the first place, I shall show, that many persons, against 
whom no suspicion of a personal resentment has ever been 
suggested, and who had fair opportunity to form an opinion, 
expressed their belief, on different occasions, that he was 
partially insane ; among them nearly every member of the 
Boott family, other connexions or personal friends, and several 
gentlemen of medical experience, including Dr. Jackson, 
and Dr. Francis Boott. Mr. Lowell himself, at one time, 
admitted it. And, although Mr. J. Wright Boott led a 
life of such seclusion that few persons, latterly, saw him 
at all, I shall prove that several strangers, who happened, 
shortly before his death, to meet him on occasions when 
he was in a state of particular excitement, formed that 
opinion, from their own observation. The testimony, in the 
probate court, of a former postmaster of this city, as printed 
in my former pamphlet, is directly in point. But several 
other gentlemen, including Mr. Lowell, were present at the 
interview, to which he testified ; and all, — unless Mr. Lowell 
be an exception, — formed the same opinion. I shall show 
that, on another occasion, a respectable physician, well known 
in this city, who had no acquaintance with the Boott family, 
and had never heard of any trouble or dissension in it, nor 
any thing about Mr. J. Wright Boott's state of mind, called to 
see him on business, not long before his death ; and the result 
of their interview was, that this gentleman, — experienced 
as a medical man in such matters, — went home convinced, 
by his own observation of Mr. Boott's appearance, lan- 
guage, and demeanour, that he was insane ; so much so, that 



762 



he expressed that opinion in his own family the same evening^ 
and was reminded of it by them, some time after, when 
they heard of Mr. Boott's death, by suicide. 

I shall compare, with the evidence above referred to, the 
statements of other gentlemen, not connected with the Boott 
family, who are relied upon by Mr. Lowell as positive wit- 
nesses of Mr. Boott's sanity, — they also having formed their 
opinions in brief interviews on subjects of business, not long 
before his death. On these occasions, it does not appear 
that Mr. Boott was under any particular excitement, and he 
impressed those gentlemen favourably, in all respects. They 
did not notice any mark of derangement. But, without the 
slightest disrespect for their judgements, I shall show, by the 
■well established laws of partial insanity, that their negative 
testimony is absolutely of no value, to contradict the posi- 
tive testimony above referred to, or to counterbalance opin- 
ions, formed by other persons from their own observation of 
Mr. Boott, at other times, and under different circumstances ; 
since the gentlemen, cited by Mr. Lowell, expressly declare 
that Mr. Boott was, when they saw him, in a perfectly calm 
and unexcited state of mind, and it appears that they took to 
be time his averments of certain matters, which they knew 
nothing of, but which, I shall show, had no real foundation 
in fact. And, since he is admitted, on all hands, to have 
been a man of truth, I think the fair inference must be, that 
these unfounded notions can be reasonably accounted for only 
as the phantasies and delusions of a deranged mind. 

The opinion of Messrs. Choate and B. R. Curtis, respecting 
the sanity of Mr. Boott's last letter, I shall show, stands in the 
same predicament, for the simple reason that those distin- 
guished gentlemen were utterly ignorant of the facts, neces- 
sary to test the foundation of its statements. They had, lit- 
erally, nothing to judge from, except that the letter, by itself, 
may have made sense, — which, as is well known, is in no de- 
gree inconsistent with the kind of insanity supposed. And, 
although I have not had the benefit of seeing that letter, I 
shall show from every other scrap of Mr. Boott's writing, or 
conversation, in the latter part of his life, which Mr. Lowell 



763 



has permitted us to see, that a certain set of fixed ideas runs 
through the whole of them, and that these ideas had no cor- 
responding reality out of their author's brain. 

In the next place, I shall examine the evidence, relied upon 
by Mr. Lowell, to destroy the credit of certain witnesses, 
whose long acquaintance, and daily intimacy of intercourse 
with Mr. Boott, during a period of marked progress in his 
mental disorder, gave them a far better opportunity, than any 
other competent witness enjoyed, of forming a correct judge- 
ment respecting his true state of mind. I refer, particularly, 
to Mr. Robert C. Hooper, and to Mr. William Boott, whose 
statements I formerly printed. The ground of the impeach- 
ment of the testimony of those gentlemen is alleged personal 
quarrels with Mr. J. Wright Boott, and feelings of resent- 
ment towards him in consequence. I shall show that there 
is scarcely a colour for the charge of any personal quarrel on 
the part of Mr. Hooper. Against Mr. William Boott, it is true 
that a stronger show of a case is made, by the particular ver- 
sion, given in the '' Reply," of a scene, which ended in his 
being struck by Mr. J. Wright Boott, and out of a few 
*' choice extracts" from his familiar letters to his brother, Dr. 
Boott. 

In respect to the scene^ above alluded to, an account is given 
of it, in the " Reply," purporting to have been derived at the 
time, by Mr. Lowell, from Mr. J. Wright Boott himself, in 
which his own personal violence was attributed to very pro- 
voking language used by Mr. William Boott. This account, 
I shall show, has the merit of entire novelty. It makes its 
first appearance now, under the pressure of the argument j 
and I shall further show, that it is directly contradicted by 
Mr. Lowell's previous accounts of the same matter, after he 
had heard Mr. J. Wright Boott's story. Those accounts en- 
tirely corroborated Mr. William Boott, and represented that no 
provocation was given. 

As to the shreds of correspondence, cited to prove feelings 
of animosity, I shall show that, in respect to them, Mr. Wil- 
liam Boott is most unfairly dealt with ; and that, with a 
little more regard to ^' chronological order," and to the state 



•764 



of facts existing at the time each letter was written, it becomes 
apparent, that the excitement of the writer had nothing to do 
with the personal ill treatment he had formerly suffered from 
Mr. J. Wright Boott, but was caused by particular, and more re- 
cent, provocations from other persons, who were pursuing a 
course well calculated to irritate any man, placed in such cir- 
cumstances. The feelings of resentment, indicated by par- 
ticular expressions, will be found to have been, generally, di- 
rected against these other persons, rather than against Mr. J. 
Wright Boott ; and it will appear that, when Mr. William 
Boott was provoked by them to use a harsh phrase concern- 
ing that brother, it was under circumstances, which naturally 
account for it, and show that it can not be fairly taken as an 
indication of his usual state of feeling, nor be received as 
evidence to discredit his general fixed belief of his broth- 
er's partial insanity, constantly maintained by him, while 
others refused to admit it. 

I shall show that the same course of remark applies to the 
warmth of expression attributed to me, on certain occasions. 
I shall exhibit a state of facts, — entirely shut out of sight by 
Mr. Lowell, — which could not but occasion a degree of 
warmth on my part, owing to the conduct, not of Mr. J. 
Wright Boott, but of persons whom no one suspected of in- 
sanity. 

Another passage of the " Reply," to be disposed of in the 
same connexion, is this : — - 

" The kindest view that could be taken of the conduct of those, with 
whom Mr. Boott was at variance, was, that they had never practically 
helieved him to he insaneP [L. p. 21.] 

Indeed, Mr. Lowell has the effrontery, (I can not call it 
less,) to assert, in direct terms, and without qualification, that 
"Mr. and Mrs. Brooks did not think him insane;-^ [L. p. 
126.] and he asks, "Is it possible, that when Mr. William 
Boott penned these sentences, [referring to particular expres- 
sions, picked out of his letters to Dr. Boott,] he believed, in his 
heart, that his brother was insane V [L. p. 134-5.] 

I shall show, in answer to this, what the conduct was of 



765 



the several persons '• with whom Mr. Boott was at variance," 
and what the circumstances leading to it were, which have 
been either wholly concealed, or entirely perverted, by Mr. 
Lowell. But, further, I am prepared to prove Mr. LowelVs 
own distinct declaration, before his interest required him to 
assert otherwise in the " Reply," that he " had no doubt that 
Mr. Edward Brooks and Mr. William Boott did honestly 
believe in Mr. J. Wright Boott's insanity." 

T intend also to take up, as a valuable text, the following 
announcement of the " Reply :" — 

" I shall begin with Mr. and Mrs. Brooks, whose quarrel with him 
[Mr. J. W. Boott,] appears to have had the earliest origin,'^ [L. pp. 
111-112.] 

In connexion with it, I shall take, for another text, the 
following language of Mr. J. Wright Boott, according to a let- 
ter from Mr. Darracott, printed in the " Reply." The letter 
was written, by Mr. Darracott, upon my request that he would 
furnish to Mr. Lowell the information it contains, respecting 
a remark made by Mr. Boott. Mr. Darracott complied with 
my request, although he said, (very truly I doubt not,) that 
he did not see what bearing it could have. Mr. Boott's lan- 
guage was this : — 

" Ours was always a united and happy family, until Brooks came 
into it." [L. p. 154.] 

Under these heads, I shall be compelled to exhibit some- 
thing of the character of my own intercourse with the various 
members of the Boott family, as illustrated by their own letters 
and by other evidence ; and I shall, also, be compelled to show, 
by like means, the relations of the various members of the fam- 
ily to each other, at different periods. It will be found, that, 
for many years after I became connected with the family of 
Mrs. Boott, hers was well entitled to be called " a united and 
happy family," throughout its entire circle: and, for myself, 
more than twenty years elapsed before I had the slightest dif- 
ference with any one of them. Indeed, until the unfortu- 
nate dissension arose respecting Mr. J. Wright Boott, within 
the two or three years next before his death, there was no 



766 

difference between any parties, in which either Mrs. Brooks 
or myself was implicated ; nor, in fact, was there any, known 
to me, which deserved the name of a quarrel, dissension, or 
disaffection, between any branches, or members, except such 
as occurred, for a series of years, between Mr. J. Wright 
Boott, alone, and some other one, or more, of the family. 
But, in respect to Mr. J. Wright Boott, it will appear, that a 
marked change in his demeanour, towards others, began at a 
time coinciding with the first pressure of his pecuniary em- 
barrassments. Thenceforward, it is unfortunately true, that 
there arose a continuous succession of ruptures, between him 
and some one or other of his brothers, sisters, and brothers-in- 
law, embracing, at different times, nearly every one of them. 
These feuds occasionally extended, for a time, beyond the 
original parties, — others being drawn in to a greater or less 
degree, — ^but Mr. and Mrs. Brooks never permitted themj- 
selves to he implicated^ on either side, until their own turn 
came to suffer, personally, from Mr. J. Wright Boott. In fact, 
there never was, I believe, what could fairly be called a quar- 
rel in the family, to which Mr. J. Wright Boott was not one 
party, or which did not grow out of, or relate to, his conduct. 
The instances, of which I speak, were not such slight and 
temporary differences, as may often occur in a large family, 
without any extraordinary cause ; but breaches of the most 
serious kind, ending in an entire cessation of intercourse, be- 
tween Mr. J. Wright Boott and some one or more of the fam- 
ily, which was always of long duration, and, in most instances, 
continued through life. 

Such a breach occurred with the following parties, succes- 
sively ; the late Mr. Lyman, — Mrs. Lyman, — Mr. Ralston, — 
Mrs. Ralston, — Mr. William Boott, — and, finally, Mr. Brooks 
and Mrs. Brooks. The late Mr. Kirk Boott, in his life time, 
can scarcely be excepted from this list, the breach with him 
being all but total. This state of facts I shall prove, in part, 
by original letters in my possession from several of the persons 
above named, and from other members of the family. Among 
them are several from Mr. Kirk Boott, written very shortly, 
before his death, and which have never yet seen the light. 



767 



Near approaches to the same state of things were not wanting, 
between Mr. J. Wright Boott and every other brother and 
sister, in addition to Mr. Kirk Boott ; but I speak now only 
of those cases, which came to positive rupture^ followed by 
an entire cessation of intercourse for years ; and of these, I 
shall show that the '' quarrel," as Mr. Lowell calls it, of Mr. 
and Mrs. Brooks, — instead of '• the earliest," — had the latest 
origin, and that it was, entirely, of Mr. Boott's own making. 

I have said that, until the latter part of Mr. Boott's life, I 
had no difference with any one member of the family ; but I 
shall show, further, that I succeeded in preserving, through 
many trying circumstances, the most friendly relations to- 
wards Mr. J. Wright Boott ; that I was constantly called 
upon by him, as well as by other members of the family, for 
gratuitous services, which were cheerfully rendered ; and that, 
on more than one occasion of serious difficulty, between him 
and some other one or more of the family, I was required, by 
the choice of both parties, to act as the common mediator ; 
and that I did so, with more or less of success, taking much 
pains, at least, to preserve, or restore, the family harmony. 

In every case of rupture, the breach will be found to have 
originated in strange and perverse conduct on the part of Mr. 
J. Wright Boott ; and there will appear a sort of uniformity, 
running through all these cases, and arising from nothing but 
his peculiarities, — by whatever name they may be called. 
The beginning was, invariably, some unfounded suspicion 
entertained by Mr. Boott ; the progress was always marked 
by unexplained coldness of manner on his part, proceeding to 
manifest signs of aversion, — increasing rudeness, — positive 
insult without provocation,-— charges, quite unfounded, and 
very similar to those said to be contained, against some of us, 
in his last letter, — and, at last, if an entire abstinence from 
intercourse with him did not sooner intervene, by some violent 
outbreak of gross offence ; and this was the more striking 
because of his usual great decorum, and urbanity of manners. 
The groundless suspicion, once entertained, could never, it 
would seem, be thoroughly eradicated. All this may be set 
down either to a most peculiar, moody, and ungovernable. 



768 



temper, or to a species of partial insanity, just as the reader 
pleases, — at least, so far as / am concerned. Until quite late 
in his life, it is true that the latter explanation of his strange 
conduct was not suggested, if suspected, by those who suffered 
from its paroxysms ; but, it will appear, that scarcely any one 
of the family was wholly exempt from suffering by them ; 
and that this explanation of his conduct came, at last, to be 
very generally received, 

I shall show when, and how, this course of offensive con- 
duct fii'st began to manifest itself towards me, and, after- 
wards, towards Mrs. Brooks ; and I shall show to what point 
it was allowed to proceed, before it was arrested by the 
consequent interruption of intercourse. I shall show, further, 
that, at the time when intercourse ceased between us, the 
Wells branch of the family took a view of family affairs, con- 
nected with Mr. J. Wright Boott's conduct, which was 
taken by no other one of the family ; that his marks of de- 
cided aversion, were at that time, extended to every other 
brother, sister, or brother-in-law, on this side of the Atlantic ; 
and that, from the other side. Dr. Boott, who is now claimed 
by Mr. Lowell as one of his warmest adherents, expressed him- 
self, as strongly as any body, in reprehension of Mr. J. Wright 
Boott's conduct, (of which he himself cited instances,) to- 
wards brothers and sisters, both dead and living, and in rep- 
rehension, also, of the laudatory letters from some of the Wells 
family concerning him. Now, since most of the persons, above 
spoken of, are justly described by Mr. Lowell as very amiable 
and excellent people, (though two or three of us, who happen 
to stand in his way, are thought to be striking exceptions,) I 
shall leave the reader to draw his own conclusion from the 
fact, that Mr. J. Wright Boott was, for years, at utter vari- 
ance and enmity with nearly every one of them. 

These sentiments of Dr. Boott, respecting the merits of Mr. 
J. Wright Boott's conduct in the family, (I speak of merits, 
supposing him sane^) will be found to have remained un- 
altered, and in full force, even after his opinion of his broth- 
er's insanity had been staggered by Mr. Lowell's representa- 
tions, supported by a certain letter from Dr. Jackson, to which 



769 



I shall again refer, as well as before that opinion was formed. 
Indeed, the long settled opinions of Dr. Boott concerning the 
causes of dissension in the family, strongly and clearly ex- 
pressed in his letters, will be found, — like his opinion on the 
point of insanity, — to have yielded at last, so far as they have 
yielded, to nothing but his overweening confidence in Mr. 
Lowell's good judgement, amiable feelings, strict regard for 
truth, and perfect disinterestedness! This will be found 
equally true of Mrs. Boott, so far as a change in her senti- 
ments appears by Dr. Boott's letters, from some of which, ex- 
tracts, bearing on this point, were printed in my former pam- 
phlet. [B. pp. 140-1.] 

In respect to Dr, Boott's former opinion of his brother's in- 
sanity, the statement of the " Reply " is, that it was founded 
'' on ex parte statements from Mr. Brooks, Mr. William Boott, 
and Mr. Robert C. Hooper.''^ [L. pp. 126-7.] So far as con- 
cerns ''Mr. Brooks," this will be found to be totally untrue. 
I never made a statement, by word or letter, to Dr. Boott on 
the subject in my life.* Neither, I believe, did Mr. Hooper. 
The allegation, that any such statements were made by either 
of the persons named, can be true only of Mr. William Boott. 
He was the habitual family correspondent of his brother. Dr. 
Boott, and, of course, communicated intelligence, from time to 
time, of all interesting occurrences in the family. He, at one 
time, transmitted to his brother an original letter of Mr. J. 
Wright Boott to Mr. Hooper, which he had obtained from 
that gentleman, and which Dr. Boott pronounced to be 
stamped with insanity upon its face. The reader, on seeing 
it, could not fail to agree with him. But Dr. Boott formed his 
opinion, not from that letter alone, but from many facts, 
derived from other sources, as well as from Mr. William 
Boott. Some of them were from parties, whom Mr. Lowell 
supposes to be, (or so pretends,) on his side of the question; 
and some of them reached Dr. Boott from so very unexcep- 

* Since the above was in type I have discovered an obscure erratum in the " Re. 
ply," from which it appears that this was intended for Mrs. Brooks. The reader 
will see presently, how far the statement is true in respect to her. 

97 



770 



tionable a source as Mr. J. Wright Boott himself ;- — all which 
will, in due time, appear by Dr. Boott's own letters. 

In regard to Dr. Boott's change of opinion, if it be really- 
changed, on the point of his brother's insanity, this will be 
found to have been derived entirely, /rom Mr. Lowell^ support- 
ed by the supposed opinion of Dr. Jackson ; and Dr. Jackson's 
opinion will be found to rest upon nothing but a statement 
of assumed facts, made to him hy Mr. Lowell^ without knowl- 
edge or inquiry, and made at the moment when Mr. Lowell 
first learned my refusal to sign the deed of the house, if Mr. 
Boott was to be the trustee of the proceeds ; that is, at the 
moment when he first perceived the necessity of a resignation 
by Mr. Boott, and, consequently, of a settlement of accounts 
implicating himself 

This coincidence I shall put beyond doubt by entries in the 
books of Mr. Nathaniel I. Bowditch, (to whom I signified my 
refusal, and who signified it to his clients, ) connected with Dr. 
Jackson's letter to Mr. Lowell, and Mr. Lowell's letters to Dr. 
Boott. Up to that time, Mr. Lowell's representations of the 
facts of the case will be found to have been such as to in- 
duce Dr. Jackson to confirm the idea of a partial insanity, 
then generally believed by the family ; but, when Mr. Lowell 
found that I had taken a stand, in a matter of business, oppos- 
ed to him, and one which must, necessarily, lead to a settle- 
ment of the executor's accounts, he instantly turned round, 
and, without any communication with me, or with Mr. Will- 
iam Boott, represented to Dr. Jackson that we were in a state 
of great exasperation against Mr. J. Wright Boott, — that the 
whole afiair was nothing but an ordinary quarrel, — and that 
Mr. J. Wright Boott's conduct towards his relations appeared 
to be founded upon very reasonable provocation ; — and, there- 
upon, he obtained a letter from Dr. Jackson, expressing the 
opinion, that, *' on the statement you last made to me, I 
should judge that there was not any evidence of monomania 
in Mr. Boott's case." [L. p. 163.] This was transmitted to 
Dr. Boott, with the letters from Mr. Lowell himself, which 
the reader has already seen ; [Ante, pp. 699 to 701.] and these 
have, probably, been followed by many, which he has not 



771 



Seen ; and Dr. Boott and Mrs. Boott have placed absolute con- 
fidence, in these letters. 

In respect to my own breach with Mr. J. Wright Boott, 
before I had come to the conclusion that his singular conduct 
proceeded from actual insanity, and was not under his own 
control, it will be shown that it did not originate at the time, 
nor in the manner, nor from any of the causes, set forth in 
the '' Reply." It will appear, particularly, that my letter to 
him of September 22, 1842, was (considering him a sane 
man.) no more than a justifiable consequence of his own acts, 
and that it was not the cause of our breach, but that the 
breach had occurred long before. Neither was it caused by 
any letter, act, or word, of Mrs. Brooks. 

Another idea, prominently held out in the '' Reply," is, that 
Mrs. Brooks, (at my instigation, of course,) was in the habit 
of communicating, by letter, to her mother and brothers in 
London, every petty occurrence, here, that could be turned into 
a subject of complaint against Mr. J. Wright Boott. The 
purpose is supposed to have been to forestall opinions, and 
create prejudices, with the view of preparing, or inducing, Mrs. 
Boott and Dr. Boott to co-operate with us against Mr. J. 
Wright Boott. This underhand dealing is represented to 
have been a principal cause of the family dissensions, and a 
justification of certain conduct of Mr. J. Wright Boott 
towards us. [L, pp. 112, 115.] 

I shall take up the evidence, on which these suggestions 
are founded, and shall show, among other things, that, in main- 
taining that view, Mr. Lowell has had the misfortune, as 1 
have good reason to believe, to misprint , by one whole year, 
the date of a material letter, — the false date being quite im- 
portant to the course of his argument. I refer to a letter 
from Mrs. Brooks to Dr. Boott, containing her earliest, and 
only, detailed account, in writing, of the occurrences, which 
had led, som^e eighteen months before, to a breach with Mr. 
J. Wright Boott, out of which other difiiculties had grown, 
then more than a year old. 

The truth, in this portion of the narrative, as in numerous 
other instances, will be found to be an exact reverse of the 



772 



statements of the " Reply ;" and I shall show the real state 
of facts to have been as follows : — 

Unprovoked, unreasonable, and, as I now think, insane be- 
haviour, on the part of Mr. J. Wright Boott towards Mrs. 
Brooks and myself, in the latter part of 1841, or early in 
1842, occasioned a breach, which, for a time, extended 
only to him, and left us only where many other members of 
the family had long stood ; that is, on no terms of intercourse 
with Mr. Boott. At a later date, I was led to address a letter 
to Mr. Wells, founded upon matters, concerning himself and 
his own family, connected with Mr. J. Wright Boott, to whom, 
in consequence of new provocations, I wrote also. Of the 
letter to Mr. Wells, its causes and consequences, I shall have 
occasion to speak again. At present, I have only to state the 
fact, that my friendly intercourse with Mr. Wells came to an 
end in September, 1842 ; and that its termination was a con- 
sequence of the prior breach with Mr. J. Wright Boott. and of 
circumstances following it. In this state of affairs, Mrs. Brooks 
and myself maintained perfect silence, and carefully avoided 
either speaking, or writing, even in the family circle, on do- 
mestic occurrences so particularly disagreeable. 

In June, 1843, Mr. William Boott, with whom Mr. J. 
Wright Boott, though living under the same roof, had 
long been on terms of total non-intercourse, was actually 
struck by his brother, in a paroxysm of unprovoked rage, 
and was compelled, in consequence, to quit the house. He, 
after consulting two or three of Mr. J. Wright Boott's 
best friends respecting him, pursued the same course of 
silence and reserve, which had been adopted by Mrs. Brooks 
and myself, except that he thought it his duty to keep Dr. 
Francis Boott informed of the facts, on which he grounded 
his own opinion that Mr. J. Wright Boott had become decid- 
edly insane, and except that he was also drawn into some cor- 
respondence with Mr. and Mrs. Wells respecting him. 

After a time, Mr. William Boott found himself in a false 
position, in consequence of very gross misrepresentations, 
from some quarter, of the nature and causes of his diffi- 
culty with his brother. By-and-by, Mrs. Brooks and my- 



773 

self began to find ourselves, also, assailed, by one friend 
after another, with stories, they had heard, of some great mis- 
conduct on our part towards Mr. J. Wright Boott. The fact 
of a family dissension was thus, by no agency of ours, fast 
getting to be notorious, and upon a false version. We were, 
of course, compelled at last, in self-defence, to make some 
corrections, and give some explanations to friends, who in- 
quired of us whether this or that statement, respecting our 
conduct, was true. While this course of events was going 
on here, we learned, from London, that like erroneous ac- 
counts were getting to the ears of our mother and brothers 
there ; and, at last, the alleged opinions of those relatives, 
abroad, began to be quoted, here, as evidence against us. 

This unfortunate state of affairs, at home, had then con- 
tinued a year or two, and was daily growing worse. Hopes, 
all along, had been entertained that Mrs. Boott might return 
to Boston ; and there was even an idea, at one time, that Dr. 
Boott might be induced, also, to remove to this country. If 
so, it was thought that a better influence might be exerted, 
by one or both of them, over Mr. J. Wright Boott ; whose 
insane ideas seemed to us to be fostered and inflated, rather 
than checked, by the only members of the family with whom 
he maintained any intercourse, or whom he chose to permit 
to enter the family mansion, of which, contrary to his moth- 
er's intention, and without her knowledge, he had absolutely 
usurped an exclusive possession. 

These hopes of Mrs. Boott's return gradually died away. 
Meanwhile, tenderness to her aged mother, and unwillingness 
to annoy her with disagreeable news, had, during this period, 
restrained Mrs. Brooks from making the slightest allusion to 
these topics, or even to any topic remotely connected with 
them, in her letters to her mother, with one single exception ; 
and that exception did not relate to the conduct of Mr. J. 
Wright Boott, nor suggest the idea of a family dissension. 
It was understood that Mr. William Boott's free communica- 
tions to Dr. Boott were, also, withheld by him from Mrs. 
Boott, for the reason above suggested. In the mean time, 
we were informed, and, I shall prove, correctly informed. 



774 



that some of the family, here, with whom we unfortunately 
differed about Mr. J. Wright Boott, were constantly writing 
to Mrs. Boott, and so was Mr. J. Wright Boott himself, in a 
tone calculated to create false impressions, and to lead her 
judgement astray. It seemed possible that Dr. Boott's judge- 
ment, also, might thus be affected. Under these circum- 
stances, Mrs. Brooks, (after one or two letters to Dr. Boott, 
containing allusions to the unhappy state of affairs in the 
family, and, particularly, to the recent assault upon Mr. Will- 
iam Boott,) concluded, at last, that it was proper for her to 
transmit to Dr. Boott, for his own information and govern- 
ment, a temperate, and I may say softened, statement of the 
facts, then a year or two old, particularly concerning Mr. J. 
Wright Boott's offensive conduct towards herself, and some of 
its consequences. This was in November, 1843, and is the 
same statement, which Mr. Lowell prints as transmitted in a 
letter under the date of November 30, 1842 ! 

Dr. Boott did not think it best to communicate this to 
Mrs. Boott, nor did Mrs. Boott receive any accounts, except 
from her usual correspondents above mentioned. Mrs. Brooks 
was advised, however, by very judicious and sincere friends of 
the family, who were well aware of the true state of the case, 
that it was her duty to make her mother acquainted with 
facts, which might affect her mother's own movements, and 
lead, perhaps, to some amendment here. But she was still re- 
luctant to disturb the tranquillity of Mrs. Boott, though sen- 
sible that erroneous impressions were conveyed to her from 
other quarters. 

At length, in March, 1844, the death of Mrs. Lyman's 
husband had occasioned that lady to remove to her moth- 
er's house in Boston. One of the conditions, on which Mr. 
J. Wright Boott permitted her to come there, was, that 
she should not only live separately from him, and in her own 
apartments, but that neither Mr. Brooks, nor Mrs. Brooks, nor 
Mr. William Boott, should ever be allowed to visit her ! 
These new occurrences, and the necessity of some perma- 
nent arrangement for Mrs. Lyman, were the particular occa- 
sion of a letter from Mrs. Brooks to her mother. She had, at 



775 



that time, (March, 1844,) come to the conchision, in accord- 
ance with the opinions expressed to her by discreet friends, 
that it was not right that her mother should be kept, longer, 
in absolute ignorance, or under an entire misapprehension, of 
the causes of the very unhappy state of affairs in her own 
household and family. She, accordingly, for the first time, 
in that letter, called Mrs. Boott's attention to those sub- 
'jects, referring for particulars to her own above-mentioned 
statement, sent to Dr. Boott several months before, and to the 
letters of the last year or two from Mr. William Boott, which, 
she had heard from him, were in Dr. Boott's hands. 

Now Mr. Lowell, it will be seen, could not have been igno- 
rant of most of the facts, I now state, and intend to prove ; since 
all the family correspondence, existing in London, was trans- 
mitted to him, as he admits ; [L. p. 128.] and a few garbled 
extracts from it are printed in his "Reply." Yet, the evidence 
of these facts is not merely suppressed, but an entire reverse 
of them is published, as truth ; and, in my belief, a date is 
altered^ by him or by his printer, so that a letter, under a false 
date, appears to give effect to certain statements of the " Re- 
ply," respecting the conduct of myself and Mrs. Brooks, 
which its true date positively contravenes. It is possible, I 
admit, though by no means likely, that Mrs. Brooks, writing 
in November, 1843, may have, herself, mistaken the lime by 
one whole year, and may have misdated her letter accord- 
ingly. But, that her letter was, in fact, written, in Novem- 
ber, 1843. and not, as the "Reply" represents, in November, 
1842, is put beyond doubt by Dr. Bootfs answer to the let- 
ter, in my possession, as well as by other evidence, to be 
stated in due time. I must, therefore, believe this important 
mistake to be Mr. Lowell's, until he proves the contrary, as 
he easily may, if the letter was really misdated, by simply 
exhibiting the original, which is in his possession. 

I shall have occasion, also, to show a series of misstate- 
ments, misquotations, and misrepresentations, in various forms, 
in this part of the "Reply," which would be quite re- 
remarkable, if we had not already been through the case of 
the accounts. The reader will be able to judge for himself 



776 



whether these are made by design, or whether they have hap- 
pened only because Mr. Lowell is, — as he says I am, — '' ex- 
ceedingly careless." [L. p. 84.] 

I shall be obliged to state, at some length, circumstances, 
respecting a certain letter, from me to Mr. Wells, which is 
made much of in the '' Reply." It is the same letter, from 
which I printed, formerly, a very brief extract, as I supposed, 
which turned out to be incorrect as a quotation, (though not 
in any thing material to the sense,) in consequence of an im- 
perfection in my copy of it, as heretofore explained. [Ante, 
Ch. 4.] The intended quotation, it will be remembered, re- 
lated only to one particular point ; namely, the refutation of 
a report of my having acted oppressively towards Mr. Wells, 
in requiring him to find some person to take a certain mort- 
gage off my hands, which I had held a long time as security 
for a considerable sum, lent to Mr. Wells for his personal ac- 
commodation. I stated that the property had then become 
worth so much more, than it was worth when I made the 
loan upon it, that Mr. Wells had no difficulty in effecting a 
transfer of the mortgage : and that he himself never consid- 
ered that there was any oppression, or any intention of un- 
kindness, on my part, in that transaction. I proved these 
statements by extracts from Mr. Wells^s own letters to Dr. 
Boott. But Mr. Lowell, nevertheless, undertakes to contra- 
dict them. He says, that, if Mr. Wells experienced no trouble 
in getting the mortgage taken up, it was only because Mr. 
Boott transacted the business for him ; that Mr. Boott, in 
truth, found great difficulty in effecting it ; and that he, 
finally, '' obtained the money from Mr. Ebenezer Francis, 
hut only on condition that Mr. Wells should pledge, in addi- 
tion to the estate, six of his shares in the Merrimack Manu- 
facturing Company." [L. p. 123.] 

I shall contradict this statement, directly, by Mr. Fran- 
cis himself, who says he never made any such condition, and 
and was never asked to lend the money on the security of the 
estate alone. He, of course, did not refuse such additional se- 
curity as was voluntarily offered to him. But, I shall show 
that it was only because the business was managed by so indis- 



V / / 



Mr. Boott, that such additional security was 
needlessly offered, and that the estate, alone, was quite suffi- 
cient to satisfy any capitalist, who desired to make a long 
loan of that amount on mortgage. 

The residue of my letter to Mr. Wells related to other 
matters ; and, after much deliberation, I concluded, with the 
advice of my counsel, not to print it in my former pamphlet, 
because it was foreign to the direct issue, then open between 
me and Mr. Lowell, and involved explanations, which, — 
though very material to a right understanding of the causes 
of trouble in the Boott family, — could not be made without 
implicating other persons, whom I wished to keep as clear as 
possible from all harm by this controversy, nor without disturb- 
ing the feelings of Mr. Wells, an old friend, for whom I have 
always entertained, and still entertain, a true regard. But Mr. 
Lowell, failing in his usual sagacity, and judging by some 
standard of his own, — certainly not by mine, — probably had 
the weakness to suppose that I desired, on my own accou7it, to 
conceal a part of the truth ; and that I withheld this letter, 
for that reason. Mr. Lowell, perhaps, thought the letter a 
good illustration of the idea, conveyed by him to the jury 
of inquest, when he described me as "a violent man;" [Ante, 
p. 77:] and, having himself but a very imperfect knowledge 
of the facts, in this part of the case, he seems to have believ- 
ed that such a letter might be made to appear so unreasona- 
ble and harsh toioards Mr. Wells, that showing it to the 
reader Avould serve to confirm the notion, every where held 
out, of unreasonable and harsh conduct on my part toioards 
Mr. Boott; for it is quite a point of the "Reply" to lead 
its readers to believe, that my course of action, two or 
three years afterwards, concerning the disposition of the fam- 
ily property, did not result from a real want of confidence in 
Mr. Boott's good management, nor from any doubt of the 
truth of the accounts, but that it was dictated, solely, by old 
feelings of animosity, arising out of a personal quarrel. At any 
rate, Mr Lowell appears to have thought that the letter might 
do me harm, and serve at the same time to divert attention 
from himself. 

98 



778 



He prevailed upon Mr. Wells, it seems, to permit him to 
publish this letter ; and he has published it, with many com- 
ments, making my conduct towards Mr. Wells quite a prom- 
inent topic, — -as if that had any thing to do with the real 
issue. This I esteem very unfortunate,-— ?2o^ /or me, but for 
other persons. But what cares Mr. Lowell for such conse- 
quences ? 

As to the mere style of the letter, I shall not undertake to 
defend that. It was written in haste, of which it bears marks ; 
and it was written under excitement, not without good cause. 
But I shall go to the bottom and substance of the letter. I 
shall show that it was written with an honest and true- 
hearted purpose, and, as I formerly remarked, in no spirit of 
unkindness to Mr. Wells ; — that every word in it, even that 
which may seem harsh, is perfectly true, and amply justified 
by the facts, which led to it ; — that, owing to the course Mr. 
Boott, (not then reputed insane,) was pursuing, a state of 
affairs had arisen in the family, in which it was impossible 
for any one of them to remain absolutely neutral, and that, 
in fact, no one of them did ; — that the conduct of Mr. Wells's 
own family, in connexion with Mr. Boott, had been such as to 
call for his paternal remonstrance, at least ; — that my relations 
to one of his sons, (Mr. Francis B. Wells,) were most peculiar; 
(this I shall prove by letters of confidence from Mr. Francis B. 
Wells himself, which I have never yet shown to any one, ex- 
cept my counsel ;) and that they were such as to authorize, and 
in my judgement require, under the circumstances, the strong 
representations, which I made concerning him, for his own 
benefit, and the benefit of his father and family. In brief, I shall 
show that a case then existed when a temperate and firm in- 
terference, on the part of Mr. Wells, might probably have 
prevented a part, at least, of the mischief, which followed^ 
and of which I then had a terrible foreboding, as the letter 
plainly proves, and as events afterwards justified even be- 
yond my fears. 

I can not, in a mere general outline, go further into partic- 
ulars on this head. It would be a great relief to me, if I 
could see my way never to do so. I desire, however, to say,. 



779 



that I mean not, now or hereafter, to impute blame to Mr. 
Wells for pursuing the course, which his judgement, misin- 
formed upon many facts, may have dictated as proper for him, 
though I still think that his judgement was mistaken. Neither 
do I mean to impute to any member of the Wells family 
greater blame than that of ver)^ indiscreet conduct, causing 
much thoughtless provocation, and tending, undesignedly, it 
must be presumed, to increase and extend the family dis- 
sension. But my opinion is, and this I shall endeavour to 
maintain, that a different course, pursued by Mr. Wells and 
his family, would have averted much evil ; and that it was 
impossible for myself and Mrs. Brooks, under the actual cir- 
cumstances, to maintain the same harmonious intercourse, as 
formerly, with that branch of the family. Dr. Boott, it will 
appear, reprehended, as strongly as we did, the injudicious 
action of the ladies in that family ; and he did so, judging, 
not from our representations, but from their own letters. He 
differed from us, at that time, only in supposing, upon the 
partial information he had, in London, of the position of affairs 
here, that we might, and should, have made a distinction be- 
tween them and Mr. Wells, in the continuance of family 
association. Dr. Boott's confidence, in the impartial justice 
of Mr. Lowell's disinterested representations, may have, since, 
altered his views of the whole case ; but, what his views were 
at the time, and what they were founded upon, will appear, 
very distinctly, by his own letters ; and I think his idea of 
drawing, and preserving, a marked line between Mr. Wells 
and his oion family , in respect to social intercourse, will ap- 
pear to have been more amiable than practical. 

Many smaller matters I shall not now anticipate. But the 
reader may rest assured, that I shall not omit to go to the bot-^ 
tom of the argument, that there was reasonable grou?id for Mr, 
Boott, as a sane man, to entertain certain ideas, which, the 
" Reply " for the most part admits that he did entertain, in the 
last years of his life ; namely, the idea, that certain near rela- 
tives, and certain former intimate friends, were combined in a 
league against him ; — the idea, that Mr. William Boott was in 
the habit of intercepting and purloining his letters, and was 



780 



aided, in doing so, by the clerks in the post-office ; — the idea^ 
that he was surrounded hy spies, — that Mrs. Lyman was one 
of them, — and that she was placed by me in the same house 
with himself, in order that she might serve me in that useful 
capacity. These, and certain other phantoms of injustice 
and persecution, equally extravagant, it is seriously argued, in 
the '' Reply," upon certain evidence there exhibited, were 
quite rational ideas I That is, the circumstances are said to 
be such, that a man, described as possessing, not only the most 
amiable traits of character, but, a vigorous intellect, and per- 
ceptions without a cloud, might well have drawn those infer- 
ences from the facts before him. 

Some of these charges seem almost too ridiculous for 
answer. The only overt act, attributed to me, in relation to 
these subjects, is, I believe, the having placed Mrs. Lyman 
in the house as my spy ! In respect to that, I happen to be 
able to prove, that I had nothing to do with her going to 
that house, and that Mr. Boott, as a sane man, must have 
known it ; — that her husband's death made it necessary that 
she should seek some new abode ; — that Mrs. Brooks and 
myself invited her to make our house her home, until she could 
make some other arrangement more agreeable to herself; — 
that other friends advised her that her mother's house, as the 
common family home, kept open at Mrs. Boott's expense, 
and then unoccupied, except by Mr. J. Wright Boott and the 
servants, was the most proper place for her to go to ; — that 
her removal to that house was privately agreed upon, between 
herself and Mr. Boott, on certain terms, which he prescribed, 
and which she, though she considered them hard, assented 
to ; — that her principal adviser, in concluding the arrange- 
ment, was Mr. S. C. Thwing, who had been selected to ad- 
minister upon her husband's estate, — an office, which I de- 
clined ;^that he was the only person, besides Mrs. Lyman 
herself, who conferred with Mr. Boott upon the subject ; — 
that Mrs. Brooks, when she was informed of the plan by Mrs. 
Lyman, earnestly remonstrated with her against it, in the 
presence of Mr. Thwing, and, expressly, upon the ground that 
it was not safe for Mrs. Lyman to live in the house with 



781 



Mr. J. Wright Boott, in his then state of mind, and after 
the personal outrage, which he had committed on Mr. Will- 
iam Boott. Mrs. Lyman, however, could not bring herself, at 
that time, to believe that Mr. J. Wright Boott was actually in- 
sane ; and, notwithstanding conduct towards herself, which, 
it would seem, nothing short of insanity could have prompted, 
she did not then view it in that light ; but, attributing his 
harsh behaviour to a less pardonable cause, and apprehend- 
ing no personal danger from living under the same roof, she 
determined to adhere to her plan. For myself, I was not, at 
that time, looked to, even for counsel, in Mrs. Lyman's 
affairs. 

In short, all that part of the " Reply," which relates to my 
conduct in family matters, will be found, if I am capable of 
estimating the weight of evidence, in a case which concerns 
myself, to be as great an imposition upon the public, as that 
which relates to the accounts. 

My only causes of regret are, that 1 can not expose the 
" Reply," here, as it deserves, without occasioning pain to 
persons, who are not guilty of the libel ; nor without making 
a use of private letters, from persons yet living, as well as 
from persons deceased, for which these confidential commu- 
nications were never intended ; nor without seeming to be 
my own trumpeter, by printing, as the best proof of my 
amicable relations to the various members of the family, 
acknowledgements and commendations, from warm-hearted 
people, some of which I am positively ashamed to print, for 
the simple reason that they run so far beyond the humble 
merit of mere friendly services, which common good will, and 
fortunate circumstances, enabled me to render. 



782 



CHAPTER LXVIII. 

A RECAPITULATION, AND SUMMARY OF THE CONTROVERSY, AS IT 

NOW STANDS. 

Some of the collateral topics, which have been discussed 
in connexion with the subject of Mr. Boott's accounts, prop- 
erly belong to that subject, from the nature of the transac- 
tions. Others have been forced into the discussion by the 
allegations, or suggestions, of the " Reply." Those, which 
relate to Mr. Lovv^ell's personal conduct, are placed in the 
same connexion, because the conduct, complained of, is be- 
lieved to have been a consequence of his agency and interest 
in the settlement of the accounts. 

The reader may well have become wearied, in following 
out the numerous ramifications of a subject so complex. It 
has, necessarily, required the exploration of an extensive range 
of facts, not always easy of detection. The subject is made 
still more complicated, and perhaps confused, by the false is- 
sues interposed, and by snares for the understanding dexter- 
ously thrown in the way, by the opposite party. 

The process of disentangling, exposing, making perfectly 
plain, and establishing by evidence, the realities of such a 
case is, necessarily, a slow one ; especially with a stock of ma- 
terials, in the way of proof, so very slender as that, which the 
author of the '' Reply " intended to leave at my disposal. I 
have derived, notwithstanding, much valuable aid from his 
pages. For this, I should be bound to express a sense of 
grateful obligation, were it not that the contribution seems to 
have been wholly involuntary, on his part. I believe that all 
the admissions of the '•' Reply " will be found to arise out of 
the silent operation of that general law, which forbids the 
making of a consistent whole by the mixture of falsehood 
and truth. Ingenuity, so exercised, rarely, if ever, fails to 



'83 



defeat itself, — producing a misjointed and impossible mon- 
ster. 

In a matter of accounts, I have, of course, been obliged to 
proceed step by step. The state of the controversy has re- 
quired me to pause at each, for the purpose of showing what my 
former statement was, what Mr. Lowell's is, and Avhat are 
the real facts, according to the evidence, which is submitted 
to the reader. I have thought it best, too, to answer false sug- 
gestions, and to remove obstructions, on the spot where they 
presented themselves, though at some expense to the progress 
of the argument, rather than to leave them behind me, and 
appear, at the time, to overleap or avoid them. This method 
of proceeding, though desultory and digressive, seemed to me, 
upon the whole, the most appropriate, if not the only, mode 
of dealing, effectually and finally, with the brilliant gener- 
alities, ingenious sophisms, unscrupulous misstatements, and 
taking displays of rhetoric, irony and sarcasm, by which, 
however ill-suited to the subject, the author of the " Reply " 
has contrived, not unsuccessfully for the moment, both to 
amuse, and to mislead, even intelligent readers, who commit- 
ted the fundamental error of taking it for granted that un- 
qualified assertions, boldly made by Mr. Lowell, must have 
a solid foundation in truth. 

I have taken more than usual pains in this branch of the 
case, because, as I remarked in the outset, the question of 
the account lies, in my apprehension, at the bottom of my 
whole controversy with this gentleman. Not that any pecun- 
iary interest was supposed to be at stake, when I entered 
the lists with Mr. Lowell. In that point of view, it can not 
fail to be understood, that, whether the accounts were right 
or wrong, real or fictitious, the result, so far as money is con- 
cerned, was, in my own belief, quite as indifferent to me, as 
it can be to any of my readers ; since all my claims on the 
late Mr. J. Wright Boott, whatever they may have been, and 
whatever they might otherwise be worth, I had voluntarily re- 
leased twice over. What the effect of subsequent discoveries 
may be, on such a settlement as was in fact made, is another 
question. I only mean to remind the reader, that it was 



784 



not the account itself, neither its form, nor its substance, 
which, originally, stirred this controversy ; but, as I former- 
ly remarked, the use covertly made of it hy Mr, Loioell to 
my injury^ coupled with an obstinate refusal, when the fact 
was discovered, to admit, retract, explain, or concede, any 
thing. The errors of Mr. Boott, in the management of his 
father's estate, and in all other matters, — his accounts, with 
all their imperfections, — his mistakes, and his hallucinations 
of every kind,— would have slumbered with him quietly in 
the grave to this day, but for the unfair dealing towards me, 
in the first place, and the singular pertinacity, in the next, 
of a gentleman, who professes to be his friend and vindica- 
tor, and yet compels me, in self-defence, to make these pri- 
vate affairs subjects of a controversial discussion. 

Prominent among these subjects is the truth of an account, 
for which Mr. Lowell has made himself responsible. His 
connexion with the origin of the account, the manner of its 
settlement through his agency, the use he afterwards made 
of it, and the character of his printed statements respecting 
it, in answer to my former remarks, have caused this to be- 
come the leading topic of our controversy. It is, besides, the 
only one difficult in its nature to make perfectly compre- 
hensible to most readers. This I hope has been done. But 
it seems indispensable, before proceeding further with the 
less formidable subjects glanced at in the last chapter, to 
take some retrospect of the ground, which has been gone 
over in so much detail, and with so many digressions, for the 
purpose of noting the principal steps, collecting results into 
a general view, and seeing how the main question now stands 
between me and Mr. Lowell. 

I began with the assertion that Mr. Lowell was, in truth, 
the assailing party. [Ante, p. 3.] 

In proof of this, I referred to statements made behind my 
back, on the occasion of an inquest held upon the body of 
the late Mr. J. Wright Boott, and to the impression they pro- 
duced. I showed that Mr. Lowell, acting, professedly, as 
my friend, and as a friend of the family, was the only per- 
son present, who assumed, in our behalf, to direct the course 



785 



of inquiry ; — that no evidence was introduced, though much, 
to Mr. Lowell's knowledge, existed, tending to show unsound- 
ness of mind in the deceased, as a means of accounting for 
his suicide ; — that, on the contrary, Mr. Lowell himself be- 
came a voluntary witness, and testified that, during an inti- 
mate acquaintance of nearly thirty years, he had never seen 
any indication of it ; — that he also stated, in substance, to the 
jury, that the deceased, being a man of fine feelings, great 
integrity, and a nice sense of honour, had been much troubled 
by the fact that he had been charged, untruly, with misman- 
aging his father's estate j-^that he had been summoned, by 
some of the heirs, to settle his accounts as executor ; — that 
the accounts were disputed ;■— that Mr. Lowell himself as^ 
sisted him in making them up ; — that, instead of any defi- 
ciency, there was found to be a clear balance due to him of 
$25,000 ; — that these accounts, though disputed, were al- 
lowed and passed by the judge of probate, and were "a tri^ 
umphant vindication of Mr. Boott ;" — that, notwithstanding 
this, some of the heirs, declaring their want of confidence in 
his agency, persisted in refusing to execute a certain deed, 
needful to carry into eff'ect a fair bargain made by him, at 
which he was greatly troubled in mind ; — that Mr. Lowell 
named me as one of the heirs, who had caused this family 
feud, and spoke of me particularly as a " violent man," and 
attributed the death of Mr. Boott to those unhappy dissen- 
sions, arising out of my groundless charges against him. 
[Ante,Ch. 9.] 

I further showed that a letter was produced by Mr. Lowell 
at the inquest, said to have been written by the deceased 
shortly before his death ; — that this letter was not submitted 
to the inspection of the jury, but that a portion of it was 
read to them, by Mr. Lowell, declaring the writer's intention 
of taking that method ''to end his wretchedness;" — that the 
reason given for not reading the residue was, that it contained 
charges against some person or persons, — naturally under- 
stood, from all that was said, to include me, — which the writer 
was not there to substantiate; — [Ante, pp. 113 to 115.] that 
the jury were impressed, by all this, with the belief that 

99 



'86 



Mr. Boott was not under any influence of a deranged imagin- 
ation, but had become wearied of life, with good reason, 
in consequence of the unjust and cruel treatment he had ex- 
perienced, chiefly from me ; — and that, in conformity with 
this belief, their verdict established the simple fact of sui- 
cide, and negatived, by implication, the idea of insanity. 

It is true, that Mr. Lowell does not admit that he made, on 
that occasion, the greater part of the remarks and suggestions 
attributed to him. On the contrary, he positively denies some 
of them ; others he denies by implication and argument. I 
hold it, nevertheless, to be established, beyond question, that 
he did, partly by direct statement, and partly by insinuation, 
convey those ideas to the jury ; and I have only to refer the 
reader to some of the early chapters of this volume, in which 
the evidence on that head is stated and analyzed, and the de- 
clarations of the various witnesses who were present, whether 
cited by me, or by Mr. Lowell, are carefully compared with 
each other, and with the statements of the " Reply." The 
conclusion, to which they lead, is, in my mind, inevitable. 
[Ante, Ch. 9, 13, 14.] 

It further appears, without contradiction, that, immediately 
after this verdict, rumours arose, and were extensively be- 
lieved, — particularly, I may now add, in Mr. Lowell's large 
and influential circle of acquaintance, — to the eflect that the 
death of Mr. Boott was justly attributable to my inexcusable 
conduct, conjointly with that of some other members of the 
family. 

Now I ask, in the first place, whether these statements 
from Mr. Lowell, in the hearing of a number of persons, and 
these common rumours, immediately following them, do not 
stand in the relation of probable cause and natural eflect ? If 
they do, was I not right in holding Mr. Lowell answerable 
for that consequence, and requiring him to justify the state- 
ments which had caused it ? If he has failed to do so, in any 
essential particular contributing to the general conclusion, — 
if any part of his statement, imputing the death of Mr. Boott, 
directly or indirectly, to my error and misconduct, Avas untrue 
in fact ^ and contrary to his better knowledge, — or, even if any 



787 



part of it was literally true, and yet pointed to that false con- 
clusion, in consequence of his omission to state other circum- 
stances equally well known to him, — in short, if there was 
the slightest infusion of falsehood, either by suggestion, or 
suppression, in the entire statement, and, especially, if the 
statement itself was an unnecessary statement, — I ask whether 
this did not constitute, under the circumstances in which I 
was placed, a very gross and aggravated assault upon my 
character ? Was it the less aggravated by the circumstance 
that it was made in my absence, and without my knowledge, 
and under the guise of executing an office of friendship ? 

All that part of his statement to the jury, which related to 
the accounts, and to Mr. Boott's management of his father's 
estate, and to my supposed error and misconduct in that re- 
gard, I think I have shown to be essentially untrue, and that 
Mr. Lowell must have known it to be so. The reader shall 
judge. 

I next addressed myself to certain plausible objections of 
Mr. Lowell, to my former pamphlet, as an unnecessary pub- 
lication of family dissensions, and an unjustifiable attack on 
the memory of the dead. 

To this end I showed that Mr. Lowell's own conduct, and 
other circumstances, not under my control, left me no other 
practicable form of redress, — at least none reasonable in its na- 
ture, and likely to be effectual for my vindication, — than that, 
which I reluctantly adopted as my last resort. [Ante, Ch. 1 
to Ch. 3.] 

The reader will remember that I was entirely ignorant, for 
more than eighteen months, that any statement had been made 
by Mr. Lowell on the occasion of the inquest, other than that 
which appeared in the coroner's official report ; and his state- 
ment, according to that report, was confined to an expression 
of disbelief and ignorance of any thing indicating insanity. 
Such a declaration from Mr. Lowell took me by surprise, for 
reasons that I have stated. [Ante, Ch. 64.J But the declara- 
tion, however surprising, afforded nothing that 1 could fairly 
take hold of I had no right to call Mr. Lowell to account 
for that negative testimony in a mere matter of opinion ; nor 



788 



rould I say, upon that information only, that the reports 
concerning me took their origin from him. The only tangi- 
ble circumstance, then known to me, which seemed to give 
countenance to these injurious rumours, pointed to a different 
source. I refer to the letter written by the deceased in his last 
moments. This, Mr. Lowell told me, contained certain charges 
against me and other members of the family. Such charges, 
if known as coming from such a source, might tend to account 
for the rumours, which thickened against me ; but Mr. Lowell 
also told me that nobody, but himself, had ever seen, or should 
see, the letter, and I was ignorant of what he had said to the 
jury about it. I had reason, it is true, to distrust the exact 
truth of his declaration that he had not shown the letter to 
any one. Parts of it, at least, appeared to have been either 
shown or read to the coroner. I knew of no other instance ; 
and for this there was the excuse of a supposed duty to the 
coroner. [Ante, p. 727.] I could not be sure that the re- 
ports, to my injury, came from that single official communica- 
tion. I had reason, it is true, to suspect that I had been mis- 
led respecting Mr. Lowell's intentions in volunteering to su- 
perintend the inquest. I had been surprised by his clear 
and positive testimony to the point of Mr. Boott's sanity^ af- 
ter what had, so recently, passed between us, and by the ver- 
dict to which his testimony led, and by his possession of a let- 
ter from the deceased so soon after his assurance to me that 
he had received no such letter ; and I was greatly dissatisfied 
with other parts of his conduct, which had then become 
known to me. [Ante, Ch. 62 to Ch. 66.] I thouojht he 
had dealt by me ungenerously, and unfairly, in not acquaint- 
ing me with the fact of his having the letter before the 
inquest. I doubted, even, whether it was not in his pos- 
session at the time of our conversation, when he gave me 
to understand otherwise. I was sure, at any rate, that he 
had not told me the whole trutJi^ when he said no one had 
seen the letter, without excepting the case of the coroner. 
But, although my confidence in Mr. Lowell was lost, all this 
afforded me no sure ground for imputing to him the princi- 
pal grievance, under which I was suffering. I considered 



789 



myself to have been very shabbily treated, by a gentleman, 
whom I had supposed to be a friend, and fit to be trusted ; 
but that was all I could say. I could not lay my finger, with 
certainty, upon any act done, or word uttered, by him, as 
the immediate cause of my suffering. 

The letter of the deceased, with suspicions that its con- 
tents had been unnecessarily made known, was all that then 
appeared for a wronged man to act upon. But 1 believed that 
letter of the deceased, as I did his suicide, to be the work 
of insanity. Others, however, who might seem to have had 
equal opportunity of judging, would not admit that he was 
insane. Mr. Lowell had sworn that he was not, so far as 
he knew ; and he had assured me that this letter, in particu- 
lar, ''is written with great calmness, as befitted the occasion, 
and evinces no aberration of mind." [Ante, p. 724.] This, 
to be sure, I did not believe one word of ; since I was also 
told, by Mr. Lowell, not only of charges against me, which, 
I knew, had no sound foundation, but also, that the letter 
purported to give a history of the family dissensions, and 
of Mr. Boott's supposed grievances ; and, on these subjects, 
I felt a perfect conviction, as I still do, that Mr. Boott could 
not have written, sane/y, at any time within the two or three 
last years of his life. But how could I make others sensible 
of this, without knowing, precisely, what the language and 
statements of the letter were ? And how could I avoid the 
effect of such statements, coming from a man whose integ- 
rity was not questioned, and who was no longer alive, to an- 
SAver for what he had written, or said, unless I could establish 
the fact that he was insane when he wrote the letter, and 
show that these injurious statements, attributed to him, were 
among the hallucinations of a diseased mind ? 

The reader will remember, that, under these impressions, 
I took every possible step, proper for me to take, to ob- 
tain a sight of the letter, as a necessary preliminary to ena- 
ble me to judge, understandingly, whether I was called upon 
to defend myself, in any form, against its charges or not. Mr. 
Lowell obstinately refused to show it to me, and could only 
be brought to qualify his former declarations, concerning the 



790 



marked sanity of the production, so far as to say that its 
charges against me produced no effect on him. He was asked 
whether he would consent to put that in writing, for my sat- 
isfaction and defence, so far as it might go ; and his answer 
was, that he should be willing to do so onli/ upon condition 
that Mr. Boott's will should not be disputed, either by Mr. 
William Boott, or hy me, on the score of incapacity in the tes- 
tator ; — »in other words, that, without even seeing the letter, 
both Mr. William Boott and myself should, — by allowing such a 
will, disinheriting us, to pass without question, — impliedly ad- 
mit, contrary to our own belief, that the charges said to have 
been made by the writer of the letter, who was also the 
maker of the will, were not hallucinations, but the deliber- 
ate, solemn, dying declarations of a man of sound mind and 
disposing memory, whose integrity stood unquestioned. [Ante, 
Ch. 66.] 

The attempt to impose this unreasonable condition, — 
coupled with an obstinate refusal to show me a letter so nearly 
concerning myself, and with the promulgation of Mr. Lowell's 
opinion that it was the work of a sound mind, and with the fact 
that the existence of the letter, and the nature of its charges, 
had, by some means, become notorious, — determined me, it 
will be recollected, to adopt a course, which might never have 
occurred to me, but for Mr. Lowell's suggestion ; namely, to 
dispute the probate of the will, for the purpose of bringing the 
sanity of the testator to the test of a judicial decision ; and, at 
the trial, to compel a production of the letter, that its insane 
delusions might be exposed. Mr. William Boott, for reasons 
similar to mine, coincided with me in this course. But it will 
be remembered that Mrs. William Lyman, afterwards, deter- 
mined, under advice, to dispute the probate of the will on her 
own account ; and that both Mr. William Boott and myself, not 
desiring, or intending, to obtain for ourselves Rny pecuniary 
benefit from the result of the litigation, assigned to Mrs. Ly- 
man all our right, title and interest, as heirs at law, in the 
estate of Mr. J. Wright Boott. The consequence was, that 
she became the only opponent of the will, who possessed a 
legal, or pecuniary, interest, adverse to its allowance. Hence, 



791 



she was, necessarily, the sole appellant from the pro forma 
decree of the judge of probate. [Ante, Ch. 3.] 

This assignment of my pecuniary interest to Mrs. Lyman, 
was, as it turned out, a mistake on my part ; since I thereby 
deprived myself of all personal control over the suit. Mrs. 
Lyman, afterwards, from motives of her own, without consult- 
ing either me, or Mr. William Boott, withdrew her appeal. 
This gave effect to the decree appealed from, and established 
the will. It was too late for any other party to appeal ; and 
I found myself, thus, unexpectedly, precluded from all possi- 
bility of showing the insanity of the late Mr. J. Wright Boott 
by judicial proof. I was equally deprived of all means of 
compelling, by process of law, a production of the letter, 
which Mr. Lowell refused to permit me to see. [Ante, Ch. 3.] 

The reader will also remember that it was not until after 
the suit, concerning the will, had thus suddenly terminated, 
that I became informed of Mr. Lowell's statements to the 
jury, a year and a half before, not contained in the official re- 
port of the inquest. The truth, then, for the &st time, 
flashed upon me, beyond my former suspicions. I perceived 
that, if my information was correct, Mr. Lowell had made 
statements, in matters of fact, untrue in their substance and 
effect, deeply injurious to me, and fully adequate, in my 
judgement, when connected with the circumstance of the 
letter, and with the verdict found at the inquest, to account 
for the rumours, which had thereupon arisen, and under the 
effects of which my reputation still suffered. [Ante, Ch. 1 
to 3.] 

My first business, of cour^Se, was to ascertain that there was 
no material mistake in the information I had received ; and, 
if not, to ascertain whether any voluntary reparation would be 
made by Mr. Lowell. The reader hardly needs to be re- 
minded of the correspondence invited by me for those pur- 
poses. He can not have forgotten Mr. Lowell's evasion of 
all direct answer, so long as it was possible to evade, and his 
refusal, when evasion was possible no longer, to make any an- 
swer to my inquiries respecting the statements he had made in 
matters of fact ^ — especially those relating to the accounts and 



792 



their settlement. His very slender excuse for the refusal 
can scarcely have been forgotten, nor his peremptory denial 
that any wrong had been done to me, for which reparation 
was dne, or respecting which I had any right to demand an 
explanation. [Ante, Ch. 8.] 

I was thus compelled, as my next step, to resort to proof 
before a magistrate, by declarations from nearly every member 
of the coroner's jury, of the nature and substance of Mr. Lo- 
well's statements to them. [Ante, Ch. 9.] They were such, 
and the ground taken by Mr. Lowell in our correspondence 
was such, that, in the absence, as I was advised, of any legal 
remedy, or means of instituting an inquiry at law into the 
truth of the case, no alternative remained but either to sub- 
mit in silence to very gross imputations upon my character, 
founded on these false statements of Mr. Lowell, or to at- 
tempt my own vindication in print. [Ante, Ch. 2.] 

This necessity gave birth to my former pamphlet, — not 
published, nor even very generally circulated, but placed in 
the hands of those persons, whom I wished to inform of such 
facts as seemed to me essential, to set me right in their es- 
timation. The character of that pamphlet, — its tenderness 
towards the memory of Mr. J. Wright Boott, when I was 
compelled to speak of his errors, — its reserve on points af- 
fecting other members of the family, maintained even to the 
injury of my own defence, while I was compelled, neverthe- 
less, to give some partial insight into the causes of the family 
dissension, — its moderation even towards Mr. Lowell, in a 
case of great personal injury suffered at his hands, — these are 
matters, for which 1 may confidently appeal to the pamphlet 
itself; especially now that the truth of the case may be 
judged of by the light of the further disclosures contained in 
these pages. This pamphlet of mine, the reader sees, was 
followed by a " Reply " from Mr. Lowell, extensively circu- 
lated, and of so remarkable a character, that one hardly knows 
which to be most amazed at, the audacity of its assertions, or 
the overbearing pretension of its style. Nothing short of 
unquestionable verity, shown by the clearest proof, could 
ju.S!tify, or excuse, either the one or the other. It is enough, 



793 



for m^r present purpose of recapitulation, to remind the reader 
that, after partly denying, and partly seeking to excuse, the 
several matters, which Mr. Lowell is proved to have declared 
before the coroner's jury, this "Reply" reiterates, in print, 
the very same matters, in substance, as truths, and promul- 
gates, also, under the pretence of repelling an imputed attack 
on the dead, much new matter, defamatory of me, as well as 
of others, and so arranged, that the publication amounts, in 
reality, to an affirmation of the truth and justice of the worst 
rumours circulated against me, originating, as they did, main- 
ly, if not solely, from Mr. Lowell's own former remarks and 
suggestions. [Ante, Ch. 8.] 

If, then, these former remarks and suggestions, as well as 
those of the "Reply," are shown to have been unwarranta- 
ble, I trust I shall not have failed to satisfy every impartial 
reader that Mr. Lowell was, from the beginning, and, by the 
character of his late publication, still is, in truth, the attack- 
ing party ; that he has, wilfully, provoked and compelled the 
present contest ; that his pretence of imputing to me a de- 
sign, and desire, to asperse the memory of the late Mr. Boott, 
as the motive of my appearance in print, and his pretence 
of arrogating to himself the magnanimous part of a disinter- 
ested friend of the family, and vindicator of the dead, are 
mere hollow pretences, set up for the purpose of screening 
himself ; and that, finding me shut out by circumstances from 
a judicial investigation, he has pertinaciously excluded me 
from every other alternative, consistent with a just regard to 
my own reputation, but that of appeal to the judgement of 
our common acquaintance, for the trial of the truth of our 
respective statements. 

I come then to the question of truth ; and the argument 
lies, briefly, thus : — 

The original attack upon me consisted in making certain 
verbal representations, which caused it to be believed, by 
many persons, that the late John Wright Boott died the vic- 
tim of a family conspiracy, of which I was the leader. The 
attack, in its present shape, goes the further length of at- 
tempting to prove, that this was a belief well founded in fact, 

100 



■94 



and that Mr. Boott himself rationally concluded that death 
was his only refuge from his persecutors. 

The portion of the '' Reply," which has now been thor- 
oughly examined, takes up that specification of this general 
charge, which most especially relates to myself. It will be 
found to embrace almost the only overt acts of mine, which 
are subjects of complaint. The residue of the "Reply" 
rests, almost entirely, upon the conduct and language of 
other per S071S, supposed to reflect upon me through the no- 
tion of a conspiracy. 

The specification, I speak of, may be stated, in substance, 
thus : — Persecution of the late Mr. J. Wright Boott con- 
cerning his accounts and dealings as executor, accompanied 
by false accusations of gross misinanagement in that ca- 
pacity, occasioning great loss to parties interested under his 
father's will; and that these /aZse accusations were wilfully 
persisted in, after reasonable proof that they were unfounded. 

The alleged proof of ihe falsehood of these imputed accusa- 
tions is the allowance, by the judge of probate, of a disputed 
account, claiming a balance of $25,000 as due to Mr. Boott. 
That probate decree is set up as a bar, in honour and con- 
science, as well as hi law, to all inquiry concerning the real- 
ity of the balance claimed and allowed. [Ante, Ch. 16.] But, 
without relying wholly upon that, the " Reply '" proceeds 
with an elaborate endeavour to satisfy its readers, that the 
account, with certain explanations of its seeming statements, 
is, substantially, a just and true account ; that Mr. Boott was, 
in the main, an excellent manager of the trust property in 
his hands ; that his errors, if there were any, were errors of 
form only ; and that no loss was suffered, by any party inter- 
ested under his father's will, in consequence of his manage- 
ment of the estate. 

My answer, in the foregoing pages, has been, in the first 
place, — That the allowance of the account, by the judge of 
probate, proves nothing as to its correctness, and constitutes no 
impediment, in the pending issue between me and Mr. Lowell, 
to a full and free examination of its statements, or of its 
omissions :— - 



795 



1. Because it was passed without examination or proof , and 
only by consent, under an agreement o( compromise between 
me and Mr. Lowell, which purposely avoided and excluded all 
inquiry into the account, in consideration of Mr. Boott's re- 
signing his trust, and with the intention, mutually expressed 
between me and Mr. Lowell, of burying forever the dissen- 
sions, which had arisen respecting Mr. Boott's conduct as ex- 
ecutor : — [Ante, Ch. 16.] 

2. Because the account was passed upon a false represent- 
ation by Mr. Lowell to the judge of probate, supported by 
the unauthorized signature of a sealed instrument m my be- 
half For it will be remembered, that, by means of that instru- 
ment so signed, it was represented that I had consented to a 
general discharge of Mr. Boott from all claims, held by me in 
my capacity of trustee, jointly with Mr. Lowell, as well as 
from claims held on my individual account ; and I have 
shown that this use of my name was made, to pass the ac- 
count, notwithstanding Mr. Lowell's perfect knowledge that I 
positively refused to be a party to the discharge in that ca- 
pacity, or to release any claims excepting my own. The 
fact, that my name had been so used, remained undiscov- 
ered by me for three years : — [Ante, Ch. 60.] 

3. Another reason, why the allowance of the account on 
such a compromise cannot now be justly set up by Mr. Low- 
ell, in bar of further inquiry, is this : — Mr. Lowell himself ^rs^ 
violated the spirit of our compromise, and put the truth of 
the accouM directly in issue, when he appealed to its state- 
ments, and to its allowance by the judge of probate, (without 
disclosing the manner in which it came to be allowed,) as ^' a 
triumphant vindication of Mr. Boott," and as joroo/ that I had 
charged him falsely with mismanagement of his trust, and 
loss of a part of the property committed to him. [Ante, 
Ch. 9, 16.] 

In the next place, my answer is, that there never was any 
persecution of Mr. Boott, on the subject of his accounts and 
dealings as executor or trustee, nor on any other subject, by 
me, or by any other member of his family ; and that there is 
not the slightest foundation for the suggestion of a conspiracy 



796 



against his peace and happiness, nor any truth in the charges 
of unmerited harshness towards him, on the part of myself, or 
on the part of any individual designated by Mr. Lowell. 
This charge of the " Reply" I have not yet fully examined, 
because it runs into matters disconnected with the accounts. 
It involves points, respecting Mr. Boott's state of mind and 
conduct towards others, and respecting the conduct of oth- 
ers towards him, at different periods of his life, which are 
quite independent of any question about management of 
property. The discussion of these points will call for an 
exhibition of facts and evidence, which the reader has not 
yet seen. He has seen only a general summary, in the last 
chapter, of what \ propose to show. [Ante, Ch. 67.] The 
particulars belong, mainly, to a distinct head of my defence, 
or rather to my defence against a distinct set of charges ; 
which defence, when fully made, will be found, if I am any 
judge of evidence, just as clear and conclusive against Mr. 
Lowell's imputations, as that which relates to Mr. Boott's 
management as executor. Thus far, I have confined myself, 
to the accounts^ and to topics intimately connected with 
them. 

But, so far as the idea of unmerited harshness of conduct, 
towards Mr. Boott, is connected with the question of his ac- 
counts, a few prominent facts have already appeared, which 
have an obvious bearing on the question of general mal- 
treatment. Of these, it may be proper, here, to remind the 
reader. 

It has appeared, incidentally, that Mr. Boott, instead of be- 
ing persecuted, by any portion of the family, on the subject of 
his executorship, was treated with a degree of indulgence and 
forbearance, in that relation, beyond any example that ever 
came to my knowledge. 

It has been seen, that, from 1817 to 1844, he was permitted 
to hold and dispose of the property, which came to him in 
that capacity, just as he pleased, without any account of it, 
rendered or called for ; — that, in 1830, it became known to Mr. 
Kirk Boott, and to me, that a great part of the family property 
was lost, the whole of it jeoparded, by Mr. J. Wright Boott's 



■97 



injudicious and improper management, and yet, through ten- 
derness to him, — a false tenderness, perhaps, — the remaining 
property was left in his hands, subject to the liens, with which 
he had incumbered it, and no attempt was made to force an 
account or a resignation ; — that, in 1833, every heir in this 
country, who had, or supposed that he had, any claim upon 
him for a present debt, joined in a voluntary release of it ;— 
that I was active in promoting this, as I was in aiding Mr. 
Boott about effecting settlements with his partners, and cred- 
itors, and wards ; — that, to avoid a family rupture, ruinous to 
Mr. Boott, I continued to acquiesce, silently, in permitting 
him to manage and use, without accounting to any body, 
what was left of the trust funds, until I was put to an elec- 
tion, in 1844, a/^er the family peace had been broken, whether 
I would, then, be instrumental in enlarging his trust, by the 
sum of $46,000, at a time when I believed him to be insane, 
and knew him to be, at any rate, most unfit to be the family 
trustee, and to be contemplating a most injudicious invest- 
ment of a portion of this very fund ; or whether, by declining 
to sign a certain deed, which it was perfectly optional with 
me to sign or not, as I pleased, I would effect a quiet surrender 
of the trust into more suitable hands. [Ante, Ch. 15, 25, 28, 
33, 34, 37.] I have shown, so far as a negative averment of 
this description can be shown, that, instead of attempting to 
propagate charges against Mr. Boott of waste, and misman- 
agement, and misuse of trust property, to the injury of his 
general reputation, — although it was my object, for the bene- 
fit of the family, to bring about a surrender of his trust, — my 
statement of reasons for declining to execute the deed was 
made only to the parties, and their counsel, with whom I was 
compelled to treat on that subject ; and that it amounted only 
to a general declaration of my want of confidence in his good 
judgement and capacity, as a manager of that trust, for causes 
assigned, which carefully avoided the slightest imputation 
upon his integrity. [Ante, Ch. 57.] And here I am content 
to leave the subject of my conduct towards Mr. Boott, until 
I come to consider, in detail, Mr, Lowell's proofs of the pre- 



798 



tended conspiracy, and to show the real cause of the dissen- 
sions, which arose in the Boott family. 

Bat the main answer, which I have made to Mr. Lowell's 
charge of persecuting Mr. Boott wii\i false accusations, vespecU 
ing his executorship, consists in showing, — 

First, that those accusations, so far as any were made, 
either at the time of my endeavour to effect a change of the 
trusteeship, or before, or since, in whatever language they 
may have been expressed, were perfectly just and true ; and 
that the account, cited by Mr. Lowell in proof that the accu- 
sations were false, is, essentially, a fiction:^ 

Secondly, that Mr. Lowell knew, extremely well, that my 
allegation of mismanagement by Mr. Boott was true, at the 
time he published it as a falsehood ; and that he kneiv, 
equally well, that the account was a fiction, when he cited it 
as proof of a fact, and when he printed an argument, bolstered 
up by the weight of his own assertions and personal influ- 
ence, to induce his readers to believe in the reality and cor- 
rectness of this account. 

Have I not shown that the account is essentially a fiction, 
and that the charge of mismanagement was well founded ? 

Certain general facts are placed beyond dispute. 

1. Mr. J. Wright Boott had the entire control of all the 
personal estate left by his father, whatever it may have been. 
He was the only surviving partner, and the sole acting exec- 
utor ; and the executor was also charged with all the special 
trusts of the will, and was the sole testamentary guardian of 
the minor children. He held this position for nearly seven and 
twenty years, during which he had never settled an account, 
except of the formation of the particular annuity funds, re- 
quired, by the will, to be separated from the residue of the 
estate ; nor had he ever filed an inventory, or statement of 
any kind, to show how much that residue amounted to, or of 
what it consisted, besides the mansion-house, the moveables 
ill it, a small piece of land valued at $500, a pew, and a 
store, which was devised to himself. [Ante, Ch. 15.] 

2. The special trust funds, set apart, in 1818, and specifi- 
cally invested by him as executor, were broken up, within a 



'99 



few years, by sales of all the stocks composing them ; the 
proceeds were not specifically re-invested as executor^ nor as 
trustee ; and nothing, afterwards, was ever held by Mr. Boott, 
visibly, in either of those capacities, until certain property, 
subject to certain liens and claims for his private engage- 
ments, was, in 1831, placed in his name as executor, or oth- 
erwise bound for his trusts, through my intervention, at the 
request of the late Mr. Kirk Boott, for the purpose of securing 
what was really trust property against his general creditors. 
[Ante, Ch. 27, 29, 30.] 

3. At the time of which I speak, — after the conveyance 
to me of certain property, in trust, to secure the payment of 
debts due from him, as guardian, to his wards of the F. Boott 
family, — after the sale of the store in State-street, devised to 
him by his father, — and after the sale to his partners, Messrs. 
Lyman and Ralston, of his interest in the Mill Dam Foun- 
dry, — there was not one dollar^s worth of visible property^ 
held by Mr. Boott, unpledged for his own debts ^ to represent 
the trusts under his father's will, with the single exception 
of a stable in Bowdoin-street, valued by him at $3000, but 
worth, in truth, not more than $1500. [Ante, Ch. 30, 35.] 

4. The omission to settle the estate cannot be set down 
to a mere inadvertence. The importance of the subject was 
not overlooked by others, nor did they neglect to lay it be- 
fore Mr. Boott. On the contrary, it has been shown, that a 
general settlement of his family accounts was pressed upon 
Mr. Boott, in 1831, as far as it could be, short of legal com- 
pulsion, or of a personal rupture, by the united endeavour 
of the late Mr. P. T. Jackson, the late Mr. Kirk Boott, myself, 
and Mr. John A. Lowell. The letters of Mr. Jackson and of 
Mr. Kirk Boott are before us. The former gentleman placed 
the necessity of such a settlement on the strongest ground 
possible ; namely, that it was an indispensable prerequisite to 
the filling of an important and profitable agency, which Mr. 
J. Wright Boott had previously agreed to accept. But we 
have seen, that, immediately after that notice, he resigned 
the agency, for no other reason, apparently, than to avoid set- 
tling the accounts. [Ante, Ch. 33, 34.] 



800 



Mr. Kirk Boott urged a settlement, again, as a necessary 
step to the taking up of any useful occupation. The appeal 
was ineffectual ; and Mr. J. Wright Boott never, afterwards, en- 
tered into any business whatever, from which a dollar was 
earned. [Ante, Ch. 34.] 

5. The executor's account, which came at last, in 1844^ 
came only because some account could no longer be avoided, 
as incident to a change of the trusteeship, then known to be 
inevitable. [Ante, Ch. 58, 59.] 

Is this account then a real account, as it purports to be, 
and as Mr. Lowell says it is, of all the executor's receipts and 
payments during a period of nearly twenty-seven years, with- 
out regard to the release he had from the heirs, in 1833 ? 
[Ante, Ch. 21.] 

I remarked, in the first place, on the singular facts apparent 
on its face. I pointed out the unusual brevity, and the suspi- 
cious generality, of its statements, such as I have never seen, 
before or since, in any paper purporting to be an executor's 
account, unless accompanied, — as this is not, — with separate 
schedules of particulars. [Ante, Ch. 17.] 

I have shown that this account really claims a balance of 
$25,000, as a debt, due from the estate to the executor, — not 
$3700 only, as the " Reply " pretends, — and that, by the 
proceedings in the settlement with the new trustee, this sum 
was actually paid, as a debt due to the executor, out of the 
proceeds of a sale of real estate, belonging to Mrs. Boott for 
life, with remainder to all her children. [Ante, Ch. 18.] 

The account admits a cash capital, received, originally, by 
the executor, to the amount of about $186,000 only. I have 
shown that this limitation of the admitted capital is neces- 
sary, if the credits for payments are correct, to make out the 
alleged cash balance of $25,000 due to the executor. I 
have further shown that, according to this statement of the 
original capital, and the other statements on both sides of 
the account, and the statement of property at its foot, it ap- 
pears that Mr. Boott had invested, and held iji his capacity of 
executor, $25,000, more than the estate, after making the 



801 



payments credited, had furnished for investment ; an ab- 
surdity, which, of itself, proves either a material omission^ or 
a loant of realitij in sor]ie one or more of the statements. 
[Ante, Ch. 18.] 

The account claims to have made a distribution to the heirs 
of $90,000, in exactly equal shares of $10,000 each. I have 
shown that, if that statement be true, the executor must have 
disregarded one of the plainest provisions of the will, and 
thereby defeated the minors of their right to interest on the 
original shares, during their minority. [Ante, Ch. 19.] 

That there was, in truth, no such equality of payment, as 
the account pretends, I have shown particularly by my own 
case, and by the case of Mr. William Boott, compared with 
that of some other heirs ; and I think I have shovvm that 
Mr. Lowell fails, upon a true construction of the will, to 
make out any right of the executor to charge to the estate 
the sum of $10,000, as a payment of the patrimonial share 
of Mr. William Boott, (supposing his share to have been 
$10,000 only,) since the sums, said to have been paid for 
him in Europe, during his minority, which make up, accord- 
ing to Mr. Lowell, the greater part of the $10,000, were not 
justly chargeable to his patrimony under the provisions of 
that will. [Ante, Ch. 20.] 

I have shown, by the " Reply " itself, that the account, up- 
on its face, admits a deficiency of §3700, in the amount held, 
at its date, for Mrs. Boott's annuity fund ; and that it does 
not explain the canse of such a deficiency, otherwise than 
by suggesting the probability of an over-distribution to the 
heirs ; which, if true, was a plain misappropriation of so 
much of the particular trust fund. [Ante, Ch. 18, 19.] I 
have further shown that this deficiency was finally made up 
to the fund, in a subsequent account, only by taking so much 
of the annuitant's own money ^ then in the executor's hands, 
and turning it into capital, without her consent, she being 
in England, and, at the time, ignorant of the fact, as, I be- 
lieve, she still is. [Ante, Ch. 61.] 

I have shown that ?i further deficiency, existing at the date 
of the account in this annuity fund, is, to the extent of 

10] 



802 



$10,500. covered up by charging the stocks, on hand, at their 
alleged cost to Mr. Boott, at the time when he purchased and 
held them in his oioii name, subject to his own debts and 
engagements, instead of charging them according to their irue 
value, at the time when he first converted those stocks into 
trust property, by causing them to be transferred to himself 
as executor, though still subject, in part, to his private pledges, 
[Ante, Ch. 27, 35.] 

I have shown that there is no pretence of accounting for 
two other particular annuity funds, (the funds for the aunts,) 
amounting to $11,000, unless distribution of the capital of 
these funds, among the heirs, is to be taken, by mere im- 
plication, as part of the $90,000. alleged to have been dis- 
tributed ; and that if this were so, still, according to the 
statement of the account, the income of those funds, during 
the lives of the parties entitled to it, was never paid to them, 
nor to any body — unless it was ])aid to the vndoiv of the 
testator, to whom it did 7iot belong, — which I aver to be con- 
trary to the fact, and which could not be true without entire 
disregard of plain dnty by the executor. [Ante, Ch. 19, 43.] 

1 have further shown that the account covers up and con- 
ceals the fact, that $66,000 of trust money had been taken, 
and used, by the executor, for the payment of the principal 
and interest oUiis own private debts ; and that this conceal- 
ment of the account is effected, first, by an omission ; sec- 
ondly, by a misstatement. The omission is of two more 
shares of manufacturing stock than the account speaks of; — 
shares, which, though pledged, were marked as property of 
the estate, in 1831, were transferred by me to the executor, 
in 1835, and were sold by the executor, in 1837, but are 
no where accounted for. The misstatement is, that all the 
income, received by the executor from the funds in his hands, 
during the whole period of the executorship, had been ^^ paid 
to, or for account and by order of, the widoio f' where- 
as, I have shown, chiefly by the admissions of the "Reply,"' 
that, out of nearly $170,000 of income received, after May, 
1831, only about $70,000 had, in fact, heen paid over to her, 
OX directly /or her i^^e, and no orders frorrh her, respecting the 



803 



application of the residue, are produced or pretended ; nor 
is any other voucher, for so large a sum, referred to, than a 
general release of claims^ obtained from Mrs. Boott, by Mr. 
Lowell, before this, or any other account, had been even stated^ 
and, of course, without notice to her of the charges, upon 
which her release was to operate. [Ante, Ch. 43, 44.] 

Of the residue of this income I have shown that about 
$34,000 had been used, mainly, for the support of Mr. Boott, 
in an establishment kept up in Boston, during Mrs. Boott's 
absence in England ; but kept up, as I admit, with her knowl- 
edge, and therefore, perhaps, justly chargeable to her, without 
any special order. But I have also shown, that the remaining 
$66,000 of this income was paid away, in the discharge of 
Mr. BoolVs private debts ; and that those appropriations of 
Mrs. Boott's income were made without her consent, or 
knowledge, at the time, and, as I believe, without her knowl- 
edge to the present day. [Ante, Ch. 43, 44.] 

The proof, that I give, of these mis-appropriations of trust 
moneys, for the discharge of Mr. Boott's private debts, is the 
admitted fact that his debts have been paid, coupled with 
proof of the amount of his debts, and with proof that he had 
no other means of making the payments, to the extent above 
indicated. 

This involves the difficulty, it is true, of establishing a 
negative proposition ; namely, that Mr. Boott had no other 
means. But, by the aid of the admissions of the ''Reply," 
I think this is satisfactorily made out; and the reader will 
need only a brief outline of the process, to see the necessity 
of the conclusion. 

My general position is, that Mr. Boott was really insolvent^ 
during the last fourteen years of his life ; and that, after pay- 
ing his other debts, he was unable, at any time within that 
period, to make good the deficiencies of his trust funds, even 
admitting to be true the statement of the account that he was 
bound to charge himself, in his capacity of executor, with no 
more than $186,000 of cash capital, originally received. 
How does this appear ? 



804 



I have shown that, in 1830, he made a partial disclosure to 
me of his pecuniary situation. I produce the evidence of it 
in his own hand loriting. [Ante, Ch. 21.] 

It appears, by the " Reply" itself, that he was at that time 
under embarrassment, in consequence of his connexion in 
business with the firm of Lyman & Ralston. [Ante, Ch. 22.] 
That connexion soon terminated ; and it is distinctly ad- 
mitted that he was in no business, afterwards, from which 
any thing was earned, even for his own support. [Ante, p. 
242.] It is not pretended that he acquired any property, 
by inheritance or otherwise, after that date. Neither is it 
pretended that any considerable part of the $90,000, charged 
in the account as distributed among the heirs, could have 
been paid to them after that date. It is, moreover, admit- 
ted, that there was no property of his father's estate standing, 
at that time, in his name as executor^ or trustee^ or other- 
wise visibly distinguished as trust property. [Ante, pp. 
264.-5.] It follows, of course, that, if we can ascertain all 
the property, which he then possessed^ and its value, so long 
as he held it, and what debts he owed, we not only settle 
the point of his solvency or insolvency at that date^ but, — 
since he neither gained nor lost any thing afterwards by 
new business, nor received any new accessions of property, — ^ 
we settle it for the rest of his life^ except so far as his lia- 
bilities may appear to have been assumed by others^ or dis- 
charged by some foreign means. If we can, also, ascertain 
lohat property he parted tvith, and when, and what it 
produced, or what amount of debts it paid, — what liabilities 
were assumed and discharged by other pe?'sons, —wha.t prop- 
erty he held, to the last, as trust property, — its changes of 
value, — what income he derived from it, — how much went 
into current expense, or payment to annuitants, — and what 
debts he finally owed, — it is manifest that we have the means^ 
not only of determining his condition of solvency or insolv- 
ency, throughout the period, but, also, of determining how 
much of the income, from the trust property in his hands, was- 
applied to the payment of his oion debts. 



805 



Now all this I profess to have laid before the reader, with a 
degree of approximation to exactness, sufficient, at least, for 
a practical solution of every question material in the case. 

I show, in the first place, Mr. Boott's written statement of 
all the property he possessed, in 1830, except what he con- 
sidered himself as holding, specifically ^ for the accounts of the 
family of a deceased kinsman, namely, the late Mr. Francis 
Boott. [Ante, pp. 197-8.] That exception produces no em- 
barrassment, because I am enabled to show, precisely, what 
it embraced. It appears, by record evidence, that all the 
" shares,^^ mentioned in his memorandum, were shares in 
two manufacturing companies only, namely, the Merrimack 
and the Boston ; the whole number of shares, he then held 
in each company, appears by its records ; and transfers, after- 
wards made, either to himself as guardian and trustee of the 
family referred to, or directly to one of its members, are re- 
corded, which, being deducted from the whole number pre- 
viously standing in his name, leave a number corresponding 
with that in the memorandum, within one share. [B. App. 
pp. 30 — 33. Ante, p. 421.] This defines, sufficiently, the 
extent of the exceptions from the memorandum, so far as 
these stocks are concerned ; and the probate accounts of Mr. 
Boott, as guardian, show what other property he held at that 
time for his wards, besides the uninvested cash balances due 
to them from himself. The " Reply," moreover, admits, in 
effect, that Mr. Boott was possessed of no other property, 
applicable to the payment of his debts, and to the security of 
the trusts under his father's will ; or, at least, it admits that he 
was possessed of no other property, knoivn to Mr. Lowell, 
than is named in the memorandum ; and I have shown that 
the correctness of the memorandum, in its description of each 
particular item of property, is also admitted, in detail, — not- 
withstanding a general sneer at the authenticity of the memo- 
randum, as dependent upon my memory for explanation. 
[Ante, Ch. 21.] 

The memorandum, is thus shown, by a variety of evidence 
brought together, and entirely concordant, to be, substantially, 
a true schedule r)i all the property possessed by Mr. Boott. in 



806 



1830, belonging either to himself, or to his father's estate, or 
to the special trusts of his father's will. Oat of that property- 
is to be distinguished and set apart, if its aggregate may suf- 
fice for the purpose, so much as will represent and cover the 
funds, for which he was accountable, either as executor or 
trustee, under his father's will. As one of the heirs, he was 
entitled to retain his own share of that which he held as ex- 
ecutor. As a particular devisee, he was the separate owner of 
the store in State-street. Of that which he held in trust for 
his mother, as well as of the mansion-house estate, he was 
also entitled, as one of the heirs, to an eventual reversionary 
share, to come into possession at his mother's death. So, in 
respect to the particular trust funds for the benefit of his 
aunts, living in 1830, he was entitled to a reversionary share, 
to accrue at their deaths respectively : and if they were not 
then living, the capital had sunk into the residue of the estate, 
for which he was accountable to the other heirs, deducting his 
own share. The present value, in 1830, of these reversionary 
interests I have estimated. [Ante, Ch. 26.] But, since he died 
in the life-time of his mother, and never sold his reversionary 
interests, nor raised money upon them in any form, they, in 
truth, contributed nothing to the payment of his debts. And, 
since no new property was afterwards acquired, it follows, 
that, whatever payments he is shown to have made, after the 
date of the memorandum, must have been made from the 
property therein described, or from its issues and proceeds. 

I next show, that the foot of the probate account of 1844 
describes all the property then in Mr. Boott's actual posses- 
sion. It all stood in his name as executor, and purported to 
be held by him in that capacity ; [Ante, Ch. 17.] and it is not 
pretended that he, at that time, owned any thing, himself, 
besides an interest, whatever it may have been, in the prop- 
erty so described, except a tomb, and certain chattels for 
his own personal use, mentioned in his will. [B. App. pp. 
41-2.] Hence, by a comparison of the account of 1844 
with the memorandum of 1830, we perceive what property 
had mean time been parted with ; and, by other unquestion- 
able evidence, it has been sho^n at about what time each 



807 



parcel was disposed of, and what it produced. [Ante, Cli. 
29, 30, 35, 42.] 

Now that Mr. Boott was really insolvent, at the time of that 
memorandum, is demonstrated, I believe, beyond a doubt. 
All the property, mentioned in it, taken in gross, and with- 
out deducting pledges, amounted, at his own valuation, to 
$213,000. But this, I have shown, was a great over-valua- 
tion. The market prices of the stocks have been proved. 
They are set down, in the memorandum, at par] but, 
they were worth, in the aggregate, at their market prices, 
about $20,000 less than par. [Ante, Ch. 25.] Mr. Boott's 
interest in iho, foundry^ set down at $70,000, is shown, by the 
" Reply" itself, to have produced, soon after, only $7624, 
in cash, or its equivalent, besides a transfer of certain rever- 
sionary interests, — from which nothing was ever realized by 
Mr. Boott, during his life, — and besides a general release 
from certain parties, to whom, according to the '-Reply," 
nothing was in fact due, and whose demands, at any rate, 
I do not count, in the solution of the problem of solv- 
ency or insolvency. [Ante, Ch. 5, 35, 41, 42.] A note^ 
valued in the memorandum at its face, viz ; $14,000, is 
shown, by Avhat it produced, to have been really Avorth. in 
1830, about $10,000 only. [Ante, pp. 289—291.] A sta^ 
hie, set down at $3000, was sold, many years after, for 
$1500, producing nothing mean while. [Ante, p. 248.] The 
store, alone, produced more than it was valued at. by $1000. 
[Ante, pp. 200 — 201.] Hence, the total assets of the memo- 
randum, at their then marketable value, (excepting the 
value of reversions received in exchange for the foundry, 
which is reckoned below,) are found not to have much 
exceeded $126,000. To this, we have only to add the 
available value of these reversionary interests, which after- 
wards came to Mr. Boott as part of the proceeds of a 
sale of his interest in the foundry, and the value of the 
reversionary interest which Mr. Boott previously owned, 
and we shall have arrived at the sum total of his means 
of paying debts, and securing trusts. These reversionary in- 
terests were partly in the mansion-house, and partly in Mrs. 



808 



Boott's annuity fund. They represented three-ninths in each, 
subject to the life-interest of Mrs. Boott. Three-ninths of the 
mansion-house, in reversion, are shown to have added less than 
$5000 oi present value to the assets of the memorandum ; and 
three-ninths, in reversion, of the annuity fund are shown to 
Jiave been worth nothing, as property, to Mr. Boott, because the 
fund is proved to have been deficient by more than one third, 
and Mr. Boott was bound to pay the heirs of the other two 
thirds in full, before he could claim any thing for himself. 
[Ante, p. 353.] The real saleable value, therefore, of all he 
possessed, was only about $131,000 ; and, of this, $5000, ly- 
ing in reversion, was never in fact sold, nor otherwise ap- 
plied to the liquidation of debts. 

On the other hand, it is admitted, by the "Reply," that Mr. 
Boott was bound, at that time, to show, for his mother's an- 
nuity fund, property to the amount of - - §100,000 
And debts to other persons are distinctly admitted, 

[Ante, p. 206,] which amount to - - 101,000 



201,000 



The trust for his two aunts is neither admitted, 
nor denied, to have been an outstanding trust. 
The fund, required for it by the will, was - 11,000 

The balance of the guardianship debt I have proved 
[Ante, Oh. 24.] to have been larger than the 
" Reply " admits, by 26,000 

And I think I have proved, notwithstanding the 
denial of the " Reply," that there were at that 
time other debts, for which Mr. Boott was lia- 
ble, jointly with Messrs. Lyman and Ralston, 
[Ante, Oh. 22, 23.] amounting, probably, to - 50,000 



288,000 

We may reject, from this amount of liability, every thing 
which is not distinctly admitted, and we may deduct, from 
the annuity fund, the share which Mr. Boott owned in re- 
version, in 1830, and even the additional shares in reversion, 
which he subsequently acquired as part of the price of his 



809 



interest in the foundry, and, after all such allowances, the 
condition, in which Mr. Boott is left, will still be a state of 
plain insolvency. 

To obviate the plausible objection that so great an amount 
of indebtedness could not have been got rid of by so small 
an amount of assets, J. have traced the disposition of the 
property, and the gradual liquidation of debt, downward, and 
have shown by what contribution from other sources, and 
by what other means, an apparent extinction of the debt 
was finally effected. [Ante, Ch. 25, 28, 29, 35, 41, 42, 43, 
18.] 

I have shown that there was some rise in value of the prop- 
erty ; that Messrs. Lyman and Ralston, owing jointly with Mr. 
Boott a portion of the debts, assumed, and finally paid, 
that portion ; that property yielding a great income was not 
sold, but retained as trust property ; that a portion of this 
large income from trust property was applied to the gradual 
payment of debt ; that a small portion of the principal was 
also so applied ; and that the balance of the debt, left at the 
end of fourteen years, was charged, directly, against the es- 
tate, and was paid by the estate, under the fictitious account 
of 1844. 

To recount the leading particulars, I have shown that, in 
May, 1831, the property, mentioned in the memorandum of 
1830, with the exception of certain items, was either put in 
trust, or marked as trust property, to secure whatever was 
due from Mr. Boott to his father's estate, and whatever was 
due to his wards upon a personal debt, for which his father's 
estate was liable as surety. I have shown that the stocks 
had then risen in value, compared with their market price, in 
August, 1830. But I have shown, also, that, estimating the 
stocks with this increased value, the whole property, so put 
in trust, subject to certain debts of Mr. Boott, for which it 
was pledged, and after providing for the guardianship debt, 
for which it was also bound, would have left, at that date, 
no more than $32,000 of saleable value, to represent all the 
outstanding special trusts of the will. The fund, originally 
set apart by the executor for those trusts, is shown to havp 

102 



810 



been nearly $117,000. The sum, positively required for 
those trusts by the will, was $111,000. No distribution of 
any part of it had been made, to the knowledge of the 
heirs. But, at any rate, the ^' Reply" admits that $100,000 
was due to the fund for Mrs. Boott. and the apparent de- 
ficiency, in that fund alone, amounted to $68,000. [Ante, 
Ch. 29.] 

The only property of the memorandum, not put in trust, 
or marked as trust property, was Mr. Boott's store, and his 
interest in the foundry. Now his store, in May, 1831, had 
been already sold, and I apply its proceeds to the reduction 
of his debts. [Ante, pp. 283, 353.] 

I next show, that, in September, 1831, Mr. Boott came to 
a settlement with his partners, Messrs. Lyman and Ralston, 
whereby they assumed all the debts of that concern, taking 
his share of the foundry at a valuation, and that they paid 
to Mr. Boott only $7624 for his investment there, in addition 
to the value, whatever it may have been, of the reversionary 
interests of their wives in the mansion-house and the trust 
funds, which were assigned to Mr. Boott, and in addition to 
the value of a release of all their claims on him, as executor, 
for whatever he may have owed them, in that capacity, be- 
yond the $10,000 each, which they had previously received. 
This settlement took oflf $70,000 of the nominal assets, 
mentioned in the memorandum of 1830 ; but it also w^iped 
off $80,000 of the liabilities, included in the foregoing esti- 
mate, and it furnished $7624, applicable to the payment of 
other debts, thus bettering Mr. Boott's condition by nearly 
$18,000. But there was, still, a deficiency of trust property, — 
after providing for the guardianship debt, and paying oif 
the particular pledges, — which left Mrs. Boott's annuity fund 
defective by more than one half; and, if the $11,000 fund 
for the aunts is reckoned as an outstanding trust, for which 
Mr. Boott was then accountable, the total deficiency, in the 
special trust funds, amounted to $62,000. [Ante, Ch. 35.] 

A voluntary release from the heirs, in 1833, discharged Mr. 
Boott from his liability to them, as executor, for any moneys at 
that time due and payable. This did not touch the $100,000 



811 



fund, not. payable during the life of Mrs. Boott ; nor so much 
of the $11,000 fund as had not then become payable by the 
death of the annuitants. [Ante, Ch. 37, 41.] 

I next show, that a settlement of the guardianship ac- 
counts occurred, in 1835. There had been, in the mean time, 
an accumulation of four years income on the trust property, 
held by the executor, beyond the allowance made to Mrs. 
Boott for her own consumption. And it was made to appear, 
that, after applying that surplus to the payment of Mr. Boott's 
debts, together with the proceeds of every item of property, 
he had sold, yielding any thing applicable to the payment of 
debt, all the remaining property, subject to its pledges, was, 
still, insufficient to make good Mrs. Boott's annuity fund by 
$35,000, valuing the property accorcJing to the prices of the 
time when it first, ostensibly, became trust property ; or, if it 
be taken at the valuation of the probate account of 1844, 
there was, still, a deficiency of $25,000 in the annuity fund. 
And it is made plain that the reduction of the apparent de- 
ficiency, betAveen 1831 and 1835, can not be accoimted for, 
except by applying a portion of the income of the trust 
fund to the payment of Mr. Boott's private debts. [Ante, 
Ch. 42, 43.] 

I have shown, besides, that, after the payment of this guar- 
dianship debt, the debt due from Mr. Boott to Mr. Lowell 
stood at $46,000, at least, probably more; and that I have 
applied to the payment of the guardianship debt all the 
property in Mr. Boott's hands, except that which is stated, in 
the probate account of 1844, as still held by him in his ca- 
pacity of executor. That is to say, the case is reduced, in 
1835, to this : — Mr. Boott held no property, in immediate pos- 
session, except as executor, and he owed a debt of $46,000 to 
Mr. Lowell. But, in 1844, his debt to Mr. Lowell is found to 
be only $25,000. Interest upon the debt of $46,000 had 
been kept down, and the principal had been reduced by 
$21,000. These payments must have been made by means 
of the trust property; for there was 7io other property held 
by Mr. Boott, in 1835. But, with the exception of certain 
items afterwards sold, which I have applied by anticipation 



SV2 



to the guardianship debt, the executor's capital remained, in 
1844, as it was in 1835. It follows, of course, that the pay- 
ments of principal and interest, made to Mr. Lowell, had 
been made out of the income of the property, abovementioned 
as held in trust. [Ante, Ch. 42, 43.] 

I have gone a step further : — Laying aside all the disputed 
liability for debts of Lyman & Ralston, — subsequently as- 
sumed by Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ralston, in their partnership 
settlement with Mr. Boott, — I have taken an account of the 
other debts ^ admitted to have been paid by Mr. Boott, and of 
the interest upon them, after 1831, to the times of their re- 
spective payments, and I have deducted the actual proved re- 
ceipts of Mr. Boott, derived from all the assets of 1830, except 
what remained unsold, according to the account of 1844 ; and 
I have thereby demonstrated, that nearly $66,000 of the in- 
come from the stocks, held by the executor at the date of the 
probate account, had gone, during those thirteen years, from 
1831 to 1844, to the payment of his debts. I have confirmed 
this by showing, from authentic sources, what the total 
cash receipts of Mr. Boott, as executor, were, from 1831 to 
the date of the account, and by showing, from the "Reply," 
what payments were made by him, as executor, for the ac- 
count of Mrs. Boott, after she went to England, in 1836. 
I have added to this a reasonable allowance, founded upon 
my own observation, for Mrs. Boott's expenditures at home, 
from 1831 to 1836 ; and the result is, that, after deducting 
all payments, made by Mr. Boott in his capacity of execu- 
tor, from all his receipts as executor, within thai period, there 
remains a balance of about $66,000 of receipts, totally unac- 
counted for, unless by the payment of his own debts. [Ante, 
Ch. 43.] 

Finally, I have shown that the account of 1844 makes out 
its apparent balance of $25,000 due to the executor : — 1. By 
charging this $66,000, which had gone to the payment of 
private debts, as paid over to the widow ; — 2. By charging the 
stocks on hand at a higher price than their market value^ 
when they were turned over to the trust account, in 1831 j — 3. 
By admitting only about $186,000 of moneyed capital to have 



813 



been received by the executor from his father's estate, and, 
by claiming that $90,000 of that capital had been paid to the 
heirs. 4. I have shown that the apparent balance, thus 
claimed for the executor, as due to him, corresponds, almost 
exactly, with the balance of debt then due from Mr, Boott 
to Mr. Loioell ; and that this alleged debt of $25,000, claimed 
for the executor by the account of 1844, was paid by the 
estate to Mr. Boott from the proceeds of a sale of the man- 
sion-house, and that the sum, so received, passed, through 
the name of Mr. Boott, directly to Mr. Lowell^ for the pay- 
ment of Mr. Boott's remaining debt to him. [Ante, Ch. 42, 
43, 31, 37, 38, 18.] 

Having thus shown the falsehood of the account, and the 
evidence of mismanagement, — even upon the assumption that 
$186,000, only, of moneyed capital had been originally re- 
ceived by the executor, and that $90,000 of that capital had 
been distributed among the heirs, in equal shares of $10,000 
each, — I proceeded to show that these statements were, both, 
wide of the truth : that much fnore was in fact received, 
and that m^ore, also, was in fact paid to some of the heirs. 

For this purpose, I relied on Mr. Boott's own representation 
to me, in 1821, that $20,000, probably,— from $17,000 to 
$18,000, certainly. — was about to be paid to each heir, with- 
out disturbing the special trust funds, as soon as certain mat- 
ters, outstanding in England, could be brought to a close ; 
and I proved the reality of the fact, that such a represent- 
ation was made to me, (since it was questioned in the '^ Re- 
ply,") by a contemporaneous letter from myself to my father, 
found among his papers, and communicating to him my ex- 
pectation of the more limited amount above-mentioned, in 
consequence of the statement, therein referred to, as recently 
made to me by Mr. Boott. I referred to verbal declarations, 
made to me by other heirs, of like representations made 
to them by Mr. Boott ; and I confirmed the fact by a letter 
from Mr. Kirk Boott, in 1826, (that is, after payment of 
$10,000 each had been made to Mr. Lyman, Mr. Ralston, 
and myself,) stating that Mr. J. Wright Boott was preparing 
'' to pay over the halances,^^ and indicating his belief that my 



814 



share would be large enough to authorize my making a loan 
to him of $8000. [Ante, Ch. 45, 50.] 

If these representations of Mr. J. Wright Boott were true, 
it appears that the whole moneyed capital, which he had re- 
ceived as executor, must have been somewhere from ^264,000 
to $291,000, mstead of $186,000, only, as is stated in the 
account of 1844. That is to say, there must have been, m 
the first place, for the several annuity funds, $111,000, and, 
in the next, for the nine heirs, $180,000, — if we estimitte a 
share at the maximum rate of $20,000, — or $153,000, — if Ave 
estimate a share at the minimum rate of $17,000. 

In proof that these representations of Mr. J. Wright Boott 
were substantially true, I have shown : — 

1. That the testator directed the speedy formation of spe- 
cial annuity funds to the amount of $111,000, and the imme- 
diate paymentj to two of his sons, of $10,000 each, on ac- 
count of their shares in the remaining personal estate. This 
sum was to be drawn out, by each of these sons, before the 
final balance of a residuary share could possibly be ascer- 
tained by a full settlement of the estate ; and, consequently, 
such a provision, by a testator eminently cautious, indicates, 
at least, his own expectation of a considerable surplus to be 
divided, beyond the $10,000 each, which he authorized the 
sons to take at once. [Ante, Ch. 45.] 

2. That $10,000 each was paid, in 1821-2, to Mr. Lyman, 
Mr. Ralston, and myself, expressly on account^ and that re- 
ceipts were given in conformity, which Mr. Lowell must 
possess, but does not produce. [Ante, Ch. 46, 47.] 

3. The intention of further payments of not less than 
$8000, each, to the same parties, is proved by Mr. Kirk Boott's 
letter of 1826; and, by his letters of 1830 and 1831, it is 
proved that Messrs. Lyman and Ralston, at that time, as- 
serted their respective claims on the executor for expected 
balances, and that the justice of their claims was not denied 
by him. [Ante, Ch. 28, 47, 50.] 

4. The deed of Messrs. Lyman and Ralston, given in the 
settlement of their partnership concerns with Mr. Boott, in 
September, 1831, expressly assigns to him, as part of the 



815 



settlement, their claims on him as executor^ for dues then pay- 
able, as well as the future reversionary interests of their 
wives, notwithstanding that $10,000, each, had been previ- 
ously paid to them. [Ante, Ch. 47.] 

5. The reversionary shares of their wives in the mansion- 
house, and in the admitted special trust fund of their mother, 
are shown to have been worth, in 1831, not more, certainly, 
than $15,000 a share, and it appears, by the '' Reply," that 
their whole outstanding shares in the estate, present and re- 
versionary, were estimated in the settlement above spoken of 
at $25,000 each, notwithstanding that $10,000, each, had 
been received by Messrs. Lyman and Ralston long before. 
[Ante, Ch. 49.] 

If there is no mistake in this latter statement of the 
" Reply," or in my apprehension of it, it proves, conclusively, 
that $20,000 apiece, instead of $10,000, was actually al- 
lowed, as a share, to Mr. Lyman and to Mr. Ralston, in settle- 
ment of their claims against the executor, independently of 
their reversionary rights ; and that it was allowed by Mr. 
Lowell, though paid only by a corresponding over-valuation 
of the foundry. 

In further confirmation of the truth of Mr. J. Wright 
Boott's representations, in 1821-2, I have shown a probabil- 
ity, at least, that like payments, or allowances, had been made 
to several other heirs. It appears that Mr. James Boott ac- 
tually held $20,000 of property, in 1826 ; and there is no 
known source, whence it could have come to him, except his 
share of the estate. Mr. Wells, also, appears to have receiv- 
ed about $20,000, less the advancements charged against him 
by the testator. Dr. Francis Boott, I always understood, had 
received a like sum, although I am unable to prove the fact. 
I have shown that Mr. Kirk Boott certainly received what- 
ever was due to him, through a partnership settlement, in 
1826, and that certain advances, previously made for him by 
Mr. J. Wright Boott, were sufficient to cover an allowance of 
$20,000, in that settlement, for his share of the estate. I 
have also shown, in answer to one objection of the "Re- 
ply," that the probable results of his Chelmsford speculation 



816 



were sufficient to enable Mr. Kirk Boott to pay the balance 
due to his brother, deducting an allowance of $20,000 for 
his share of the estate, and yet to leave for him that whole 
residue of property, which Mr. Lowell asserts that he pos- 
sessed after the settlement of 1826. [Ante, Ch. 50, 55.] 

The probability seems to be, from all the evidence pro- 
duced, that most of the heirs were allowed to receive, in some 
form, the nominal equivalent of $20,000 each, though Mrs, 
Brooks and Mr. William Boott certainly did not ; and it was, 
probably, to avoid the disclosure of unequal distributions, and 
of balances still due to some of the heirs, that payments to 
other heirs, beyond the sum of $10,000 each, are not credited 
in the account. The omission, on one side of the account, 
of payments and distributions, actually made to some of the 
heirs, would, necessarily, involve an omission, on the other 
side of the account, of a corresponding amount in the capital 
received ; otherwise, the account could not terminate, as it 
does, with an apparent balance, due to the executor, sufficient 
to pay his debt to Mr. Lowell. 

Prom the foregoing premises, 1 infer that the account should 
have charged the executor with nearly $100,000 more of 
capital originally received, and should have credited him 
with about $70,000 more of capital distributed, unequally, 
to some of the heirs, and not to others. 

In confirmation of this view, I have shown that the "Re- 
ply " admits losses of capital, belonging either to Mr. Boott, or 
to his father's estate, to the amount of from $140,000 to 
$150,000. It is true, that of the capital, so lost, the greater part 
is said, in the " Reply," to have been Mr. Bootfs private 
fortune ; and so much of it, as is admitted to have been the 
property of the estate^ is said to have been inevitably lost,, 
without fault of the executor, by the course of events in the 
winding up of the business of the first house, named, ''Kirk 
Boott & Sons." [Ante, Ch. 52.] 

These allegations led me to examine the specified causes 
of loss, and to go somewhat into the history of the sev- 
eral mercantile houses, of which Mr. J. Wright Boott was 
^.member. Without recapitulating minutely, I may remind 



817 



the reader, that, before the formation of the house of "Kirk 
Boott & Son,^^ Mr. Boott, senior, is admitted to have been 
a man of handsome fortune, while Mr. J. Wright Boott was 
a minor without property. I have shown that, during the 
whole period of his copartnership with his father, there were 
but three years, during which the trade with Great Britain, 
in which they were engaged, was politically open ; and that 
the terms of the copartnership allowed to his father five per 
cent, for the use of his capital, before any division of profits 
was to be made between them ; and that profits, when earned, 
beyond that rate of interest, were divided in the proportion 
of one fourth, only, to the son, a^id three fourths to the father. 
Hence, I have demonstrated the absurdity of Mr. Lowell's 
allegation that Mr. J. Weight Boott was worth, at his father's 
death, $70,000, besides his inheritance, unless the father's 
estate, and, consequently, the executor's accountability, should 
be admitted to have been vastly larger than any hypothesis 
of mine demands. I have shown, on the contrary, that Mr. 
J. Wright Boott's opportunities did not permit him to have ac- 
quired any very large property, previous to his father's death, 
and that Mr. Lowell fails, utterly, to point out any specific 
property, or any amount of capital not borrowed, possessed 
by Mr. Boott within a few years after his father's death, ex- 
cept that which he derived under his father's will. [Ante, 
Ch.51 to 55.] 

I have shown that most of the alleged causes of loss, in 
the winding up of the business of the house in which the 
father was a partner, would have pressed less upon thathowsQ 
than upon the current business and final liquidation of the 
second house of '' Kirk Boott & Sons,"-— formed by three of 
the sons after the death of their father, — and that the busi- 
ness of this latter house is declared by Mr. Kirk Boott to 
have been a very losing one. I infer, from the marked si- 
lence of the "Reply," that the business of the later firm of 
Boott & Lowell was, also, productive of some loss to Mr. 
Boott. 1 show, that, during the existence of these houses, 
Mr. Boott entered into large speculations, and came under 
heavy advances, quite beyond any means of his own>. to 



818 



some, or to one at least, of his brothers. I show a proba- 
bility, at least, that the capital of the estate was permitted by 
the executor to pass into the business of these several mer- 
cantile houses, and to furnish these advances to his broth- 
ers, and that the losses, both of principal and interest, what-> 
ever they may have been, fell, by necessity, upon that capital^ 
for which the executor had thus made himself personally 
responsible. 1 show a high probability that Mr. Boott would 
have been found worth nothing, after liquidating his debts, 
had he brought his accounts to a settlement, all round, at the 
time he went into the business of the foundry, in 1826 ; 
and, consequently, that the capital, employed by him, in 
that business, was really capital belonging to the estate. 
It is clear that he sunk in that business nearly $70,000 of 
available capital ; and, not counting, as property, reversion- 
ary shares of a trust fund, which he was enable to make 
good to the other parties interested in it, my belif^.f is, that his 
total loss of active means, in that concern^ was, (^vQntually, 
including interest, about $100,000. The loss, whatever it 
was, must have fallen upon capital, or upon the income from 
capital, belonging to his father's estate. [Ante, Ch. 54, 55.] 

Finally, I have shown, as a consequence of all this mis- 
management, that the ascertained losses of parties, interested 
under the will of Mr. Boott, senior, probably amounted^ 
without reckoning interest on the principal sums, to much 
more than ^100,000. These losses constituted a just claim, 
in favour of those parties, against the executor, for that 
amount, except so far as it had been discharged by the vol- 
untary releases of 1833 ; and, after giving full effect to those 
releases, Mr. J. Wright Boott was, still, a large debtor to 
some of the parties interested under the will, at the time of 
the stating of a probate account, with an apparent balance of 
$25,000 due to himself, which account the '' Reply " asserts 
to be a true account of all the executor's receipts and pay- 
ments, without regard to the effect of the former releases. 
[Ante, Ch. 56.] 

I trust, therefore, that I have fully maintained my first 
•proposition, in both its vbranch^g-;- namely,- that there had 



819 



been great mismanagement by the executor, resulting in loss ; 
and that the account, cited by Mr. Lowell as proof to the 
contrary, was, essentially, a fictitious account. 

But believing, as I do, that Mr. Boott was insane upon 
every subject connected with his family relations, — including 
the principles of just accountability for the family property 
committed to his care, — I should do great injustice to his mem- 
ory, if I permitted the responsibility of that account to rest, 
wholly, or mainly, upon him ; and my answer, in a personal 
controversy of this nature, — following a publication so ex- 
tremely insolent, and so utterly unfounded in truth, as the 
^' Reply," — would be very incomplete, if I did not show that 
Mr. Lowell, at the time of that publication, knew, even bet- 
ter than I, the general fact of mismanagement and loss, and 
that he perfectly well knew the fictitious character of the 
account, drawn up by himself. 

Did he, or did he not, know the general fact of misman- 
agement by the executor, and of great loss resulting from it ? 

For me, his own admissions, in private conversations, before 
this controversy arose, are evidence enough. But those I 
cannot prove otherwise than by my own statements, which 
he may deny, valeat quantum. I have pointed out the fact, 
however, that some of his statements on this subject were 
repeated, on my authority, soon after they were made, in a 
letter from Mrs. Brooks to Mrs. Boott ; that this letter was sent, 
soon after, by Mrs. Boott to Mr. Lowell ; and that he has 
never ventured, from that day to this, to deny the truth of 
my report of his conversations, by any communication made 
known to me. [Ante, Ch. 58.] 

But let us see what has been, more positively, p'Oi;eG?, con- 
cerning his means of knowing the executor's course of man- 
agement. 

It appears, chiefly by his own showing, that he was a clerk 
in the first house of Kirk Boott & Sons, from June, 1815, 
until March, 1818, when that house terminated, agreeably 
to the directions of the will of Mr. Boott, senior, who died 
in January, 1817; — [L. p. 23.] that he was a clerk in the sec- 
ond house of Kirk Boott & Sons, for about one year, ending 



820 



in March, 1819; — [L. pp. 23 — 5.] that he formed a partner" 
ship with Mr. J. Wright Boott, under the firm of Boott &- 
Lowellj the successors of the second house of Kirk Boott 
&/ Sons, which partnership continued from January 1, 1822, 
to July 1, 1824; — [L. pp. 27-8.] that, during about one year 
of that period, he was the private agent for his partner, 
then absent in Europe, and attended, among other things, to 
the family accounts ; — [L. pp. 28, 69.] that he was one of the 
advisers o{ Mr. Boott, during his difficulties in 1830 and 1831, 
and effected the settlement with his partners in the house of Ly- 
man ^ Ralston ; — [L. p. 79.] that he was, himself, at that time, 
the largest, and, finally, the sole, creditor of Mr. Boott, by rea- 
son of large sums of money lent upon collateral security, and 
that he thereby became the actual holder, as pledgee, of 
the greater part of the property disclosed by the account of 
1844, and that he continued to hold it up to the time of that 
account. [L. pp. 87, 97, 41, 42.] He appears, in 1835, as 
the principal counsellor and assistant of Mr. Boott, about 
the settlement of his guardianship accounts. [L. pp. 80, 
81.] He appears, again, in 1844, as Mr. Boott's man of busi- 
ness, and negotiator, in the preparing and final settlement 
of the executor^ s account. [Ante, Ch. 58 to 61.] He testified 
at the inquest, according to the official report, that " Deceased 
was in the habit of consulting with witness, about his affairs, 
more than any one else.^'' [B. App. p. 58.] He became the 
executor of the deceased, and, thereby, came into possession 
of all his books and papers^ in addition to those of Boott & 
Lowell, which beheld as surviving partner. [B. App. p. 71 ] 
The " Reply " further admits, that, about the time of the 
death of Mr. Boott, senior, Mr. Lowell was conversant with 
the provisions of his will ; for we are told that the general 
residuary property of the heirs, beyond the special trust funds, 
and the particular legacies and devises, was a subject of con- 
versation and estimate among the clerks. [L. pp. 25, 26.] 
According to Mr. Lowell's unfortified report of the estimates 
of the clerks, they did not range above $16,000 or $17,000 
tea share, besides reversionary interests, and even finally set- 
tled at about $15,000. [L. pp.52, 26.] This, however, rests 



g2r 



on his own reminiscence ; and he, alone, by his own report^ 
appears to have brought down the estimate, at a later period, 
to $10,000, or less, [L. p. 27.] in consequence of supposed 
causes of loss, which I think I have shown could not have 
had the operation attributed to them, and which, if I am 
right, Mr. Lowell could not have supposed them to have at 
the time of their occurrence. [Ante, Ch. 54.] 

I think it sufficiently appears, that Mr. Boott was not in the 
habit of keeping books of account, separately from the books of 
the mercantile houses, with which he was connected ; that his 
cash dealings, as executor or otherwise, were effected through 
those houses, and were recorded in their books ; and conse* 
quently, that, during the period of the existence of the house 
of Boott & Lowell, Mr. Lowell, as the accountant of that 
house, must have been at least as well acquainted with them 
as Mr. Boott himself. In fact, the books of that house are 
expressly cited by Mr. Lowell, to prove certain receipts and 
payments of Mr. Boott, as executor, and as guardian. [L. 
p. 69.] 

Considering these general means of knowledge, if any man 
knew whether Mr. Boott was managing the business of his 
father's estate properly, or improperly, Mr. Lowell was that 
man ; and, accordingly, he himself declares, in one of his 
letters to Dr. Boott, written in the life time of Mr. J. Wright 
Boott, " I do know much, — more, perhaps, than any other per- 
son, — of the history of this property, and its management." 
[L. p. 165. Ante, pp. 700, 701.] 

Let us look, then, to the evidence of certain particular 
facts, which, having such ample means of knowledge, it 
would seem, he could not but have known. 

I have proved that the principal operations of Mr. Boott, in 
the buying and selling of stocks, and the chief calls for 
money for his large investment in the Chelmsford specula- 
tion, and in the companies which grew out of it, and for the 
advances made in the same business to his brothers, occurred 
during the period of the house of Boott & Lowell. [Ante, 
Ch. 51.] Is it possible that Mr. Lowell, his partner, should 
have been totally ignorant of those transactions? Must he 



822 



hot have known that the estate of Mr. Boott, senior, Was still 
unsettled? Did he not see that the funds, employed in 
trade and in those speculations, together, were greatly beyond 
dixiy private fortune, which, he now says, he supposed Mr. 
Boott to possess ? Whence did he imagine these large funds 
to have come ? 

We have proof, by his own admission, that he knew Mr. 
Boott's habit of holding his trust funds, uninvested, ostensibly, 
as executor or trustee, and that they stood undistinguished 
from his oion; for, he says, he condemned the practice as un- 
justifiable, and remonstrated with Mr. Boott against it. [L. pp. 
35, 88. Ante, Ch. 27.] But, I have proved that the trust fund of 
1818, — the most of it, at least, —was, at first, properly invested 
in the name of " J. W. Boott, executor ;" that stocks, so held in 
trust as executor, were afterwards sold ; that the proceeds 
were not invested as executor, but were treated like private 
fiinds) and, when reinvested, came out as investments in the 
private name of Mr. Boott ; and I have also proved that this 
change^ in Mr. Boott's course of dealing with his trust funds, 
occurred during his connexion in business with Mr. Lowell, 
and while his accounts were kept, as it seems, in the books 
of Boott &. LowelL [Ante, Ch. 27.] Not only so, but it is 
distinctly proved that Mr. Lowell, himself, accepted transfers, 
from the executor to Boott & Lowell, of stocks so held, to a 
large amount, and afterwards himself sold those stocks, dur- 
ing his partner's absence in Europe, and that no equivalent 
appears to have been placed by him in the name of the ex- 
ecutor ; nor have we, to this day, any account of the manner, 
in which the proceeds were disposed of [Ante, Ch. 27. 56, 
63.] Yet, in these transactions, Mr. Lowell was, clearly, an 
active participator. 

He knew, or ought to have known, in 1827 and 1830, — - 
for I have proved that he had the means of knowledge in 
his own hands,— that stocks, then pledged to him by Mr. 
Boott, though standing iti his own name, were not, in truth, 
his own property, but that some portion of them, if not 
all, were stocks which represented trust funds, for which 
Mr. Boott was accountable, and that they could not be bound 



823 



for Mr. Boon's private debts, without being taken from the 
trusts, to which they belonged in fact, though not in form. 
[Ante, Ch. 39.] Yet, Mr. Lowell accepted transfers of those 
stocks, in pledge to himself, as security for Mr. Boott's private 
debt. 

He knew of the Chelmsford speculation, of course, and of 
the large amount of funds it had taken up ; and he knew, 
also, of the iron foundry speculation, entered upon in 1826, 
and terminated in 1831, and of the embarrassments, under 
which Mr. Boott laboured in consequence ; for he himself 
acted for Mr. Boott, as he avers, in the settlement made with 
Messrs. Lyman and Ralston. [L. p. 109.] He knew, and 
states, that funds were invested there by Mr. Boott to the 
amount of ^70,000. at least, and that, from these funds, only 
$7624 ever came back, in the shape of active means, suitable 
for the payment of debts. [L. pp. 90, 79.] He could not but 
have known, in the course of the negotiations, the claims of 
both Lyman and Ralston to further dues from the executor, 
beyond the $10,000 each, which they had previously received ; 
and, although he says that he insisted that the $10,000, 
already paid, was an over-payment, [L. p. 54.] it appears, I 
think, with sufficient distinctness, that he in fact allowed 
them, in that settlement, and nominally paid to them by the 
assignment of Mr. Boott's interest in the foundry, an addi- 
tional $10,000 each, as due to them from the executor. 
[Ante, Ch. 49.] Is it credible, then, that he should not have 
known, at that period, the positively insolvent condition of 
Mr. Boott ? or that he should not have known that other like 
balances were due to other Jieirs ? 

He knew that all the property, which was marked as trust 
property^ in May, 1831, subject to pledges, with which he 
was well acquainted, and subject to the reputed balance of 
the guardianship debt, was greatly insufficient to make good 
the particular trust funds, called for by the will. [Ante, Ch. 
29, 30, 31.] 

He knew that the shares, afterwards transferred to him by 
Mr. Sturgis as security for new advances made to Mr. Boott, 
were di part oi the property so marked for the estate ; yet he 



824 



received them in pledge for the private debt of Mr. Boott, 
and never gave me notice that he had taken them, though 
he informed me, a long time after, that the debt to Mr. Stur- 
gis had been paid. [Ante, Ch. 36.] 

He knew that Mr. Boott never afterwards acquired new 
property, and that nothing could have been paid by him to 
any heir, to make a balance in his favour, after the period of 
known insolvency, and of visible inability to make good even 
the special trust funds. [L. p. 91.] 

He knew, extremely well, that Mr. Boott was gradually 
paying off his debts out of the income of the trust property , 
because he himself was the holder of more than one half of 
the property, the personal recipient of the dividends, which 
accrued upon it, a7id the holder, also, of the debt, which was 
paid off, in great part, by those dividends, besides his general 
knowledge of the fact that Mr. Boott was possessed of no 
other means of paying his debts, except this trust property, 
which was pledged for them. [Ante, Ch. 43.] 

Now. if Mr. Lowell knew all, or most, of these particular 
facts, at the time of their occurrence, or afterwards, and had 
the means of knowledge, which are above shown, concern- 
ing Mr. Boott's business habits and affairs, generally, I ask 
whether he did not, necessarily, know the main fact, that 
there had been great mismanagement by Mr. Boott, in his 
capacity of executor, and that more or less of loss had arisen 
from it, to parties interested in the due performance of his 
trusts ? Did he not certainly know this, when he had him- 
self received large sums out of the ijicome of the trust prop- 
erty^ in discharge of Mr. Bootfs private debts to him 1 Did 
he not know it all, at the time of the publication of his "i?e- 
ply,^^ after my former statement had put him on inquiry, 
with all the means of knowledge in his own hands ? 

It is hardly necessary to ask, after the evidence of knowl- 
edge in the other matters above stated, whether he did not 
know the fictitious character of the account, at the time when 
he appealed to it as ^'-a triumphant vindication of Mr. Boott." 
[f I have proved the account to be essentially erroneous, — as 
no.man/whp has attended |;p the evidence, can doubt,— how 



825 



could Mr. Lowell have failed to know the fact ? Have I not 
proved that he was the authoi^ of that account ? — that it was 
made by him, not from materials and information proceeding 
from Mr. Boott, but, in all it contained of new, or useful, 
information to the heirs, from materials furnished by him to 
Mr. Boott, out of the books of Boott & Lowell ? So far is 
the account from being, substantially, the work of Mr. Boott, 
that I have proved, by Mr. Lowell's own statement to a dis- 
interested witness, that Mr. Boott 7^ef used ^ at first, to adopt if. 
By his statement to me, if my report of it may be received 
as evidence of the fact, Mr. Boott persisted in the refusal for 
nearly six months. Who induced him, finally, to adopt it, 
but Mr. Lowell ? [Ante, Ch. 58, 59.] 

Did he not know the agency of Boott (^'* Lowell, in large 
transactions concerning the estate, and the use made of its 
funds, at that period, which this account does not disclose ? 
Did he not know that it could not be true, as the account, by 
necessary implication, asserts, that nothing was collected 
from the assets of the first house of Kirk Boott & Sons, dur- 
ing the four years of the existence of the second house of 
that name, which was the appointed liquidator of the former 
house ? Did he not know that between sixty and seventy 
thousand dollars, m principal and interest, of Mr. Boott's 
debts had been paid, he himself receiving the most of it, 
out of the income of the trust fund, and that this was not "by 
order of the widow," and that the statement of the account, 
in that particular, was positively false ? Did he not know 
that the apparent balance of the account, in the executor's 
favour, was made, wholly, out of that misappropriation, and 
that, otherwise, the account must have stood with a large 
balance against him, by subjecting the principal of the trust 
fund to the debts, for which it was in fact pledged ? 

Yet. it was Mr. Lowell, who held forth this, as a true ac- 
count, to ignorant heirs, relying implicitly on his assurances, 
and on his better means of knowledge. It was he, who ob- 
tained from parties in England prospective releases, adequate 
to pass, so far as their interests were concerned, any account 
that might be presented ; and he it was, who applied those 



826 



releases to the passage of this account. [Ante, Ch. 58, 60.] 
It was he, who obtained, from those of the heirs, here, who 
disbelieved, or distrusted, so remarkable an account, their 
assent to its allowance, on condition that Mr. Boott should 
resign his trust. [Ante, Ch. 16, 60.] It was those releases, 
from parties who knew nothing of the facts, and this com- 
promise, with parties who knew little of them compared with 
himself, which superseded, and dispensed with, all proof or 
inquiry respecting the account, and respecting matters behind 
the account. One obstacle only remained to its passage, and 
that was the want of a release from me, in my capacity of 
trustee^ which I positively refused to give ,• but that was got 
over by the signing, for me and in my name, by Mr. Lowell, of 
a legal instrument, which I had positively refused to sign for 
myself in that capacity^ and by presenting the paper, so sign- 
ed, to the probate court, as evidence that I freely assented 
in that capacity ^ as well as in respect to my private interest, 
to an absolute release of all claims on the executor. [Ante, 
Ch. 60.] And it is Mr. Lowell, who cites such an account, 
so made^ and so passed^ as evidence that I h.a.d falsely accused 
Mr. Boott of mismanaging his trusts ; and he it is, who 
has published the extraordinary statements concerning it, 
which have now been exposed, as part of an argument, to 
prove that gross misconduct on my part occasioned the death 
of Mr. Boott ! 

If I have succeeded in establishing my second proposi- 
tion, — that Mr. Lowell knew of the mismanagement when 
he accused me of making false charges to that effect, and that 
he knew of the imperfection and substantial incorrectness of 
the account, prepared by himself, when he cited it as proof 
that my charges were false, — what can be said or thought of 
his ''Reply," put forth, as it is, in a tone of confident au- 
thority, which, if its pages were not before us, would surpass 
belief? 

Indeed, the character of that publication, taken from be- 
ginning to end, in connexion with the facts now proved, and 
with the proof of Mr. Lowell's knowledge concerning them, 
is, to my mind, more fatal than a confession. What man, 



82' 



under such circumstances, could so have written, with the 
honest purpose either of establishing a truth, or of vindicat- 
ing a deceased friend ? 

That the general purpose of the " Reply" is not to estab- 
lish a truth, but the reverse, and not to vindicate others, but 
to screen its author, is apparent enough from the foregoing 
review of the substance of the argument. But, when we 
come to analyze the means, employed to give popular effect 
to the imposition, one scarcely knows how to point out, in a 
brief recapitulation, the manifold instances, exposed in the 
preceding pages, of particular deceptions, various in kind and 
degree, but all contributing more or less to a structure of fic- 
tion. 

Shall I call to mind some of the many fallacious expedients 
for diverting attention from the true issues, and exciting un- 
founded prejudices, by which the reader of the '* Reply" has 
been led off upon new and immaterial subjects of inquiry, 
presented to him as if they were of the last importance ? 

I do not mean to speak of mere arts of style^ which may 
tend to deceive some readers ; but I may refer, for a more 
substantial example, to the bold pretence that there is no 
real controversy hetiveen me and Mr. Lowell, and that I 
only feign one, in order to make him a convenient cover 
for renewing the discussion of an old quarrel with a party 
deceased, whose memory I am charged with reviling, and 
seeking to revile in this form ; while the plain truth is, that 
I simply defend myself against attacks from Mr. Lowell, 
made in a shape, which inevitably compels me, if I defend 
myself at all, to speak of that deceased party in reference to 
his management of property. [Ante, Ch. 1, 2.] 

Or, I may refer, for another illustration, to the bringing for- 
ward, as a prominent subject for discussion, the propriety of 
my conduct towards Mr. Wells and his family ^ in matters 
not alluded to by me in my former pamphlet, and which have 
no important bearing upon any question previously opened in 
this controversy. [Ante, Ch. 67.] 

Of similar character is the groundless suggestion that Mrs. 
Mary Lyman and Mr. William Boott are, each, to be held 



828 



jointly responsible loith me for a pamphlet, which neither of 
them had any thing to do with ; for, out of this gratuitous 
assumption, an excuse is framed for directing much of the 
reader's attention to their conduct or language on particular 
occasions, and for making them^ instead of me, subjects of 
very unfair animadversion. [Ante, Ch. 7, 20.] 

Another like attempt to mislead the reader's judgement, by 
the introduction of foreign matter, appears in the evidence 
offered to prove Mr. Boott's excellent management, as is al- 
leged, of funds held by him as guardian for certain remote 
relatives ; and this interpolation, to make it seem the less in- 
appropriate, is coupled with an attempt to fix upon me a 
charge against Mr. Boott of "unfaithfulness" towards those 
wards; although it is plain that the whole question was 
then, as it is now, respecting Mr. Boott's management of the 
property of his mother, and brothers, and sisters, and that 
what I said was in reference to the performance of his duties 
as executor, trustee, and guardian, under his father^s will, 
and did not refer to his guardianship of the F. Boott family. 
[Ante, Ch. 16.] 

Under the same head may properly be classed the exag- 
geration, in the '^ Reply," of a few immaterial errors in my 
former pamphlet, until they are wrought up into a picture of 
such general and habitual inaccuracy, that no reliance, as it 
argues, can or ought to be placed on any statement from 
me, though great exactness of statement, and perfection of 
memory, seem to be claimed for Mr. Lowell. The reader 
should not only see how insignificant these errors really are^ 
in their bearing on the main questions in controversy, and how 
little they tend to prove the point for which they are cited, 
[Ante, Ch. 3 to 6, 22, 23, 35.] but he should note, in the 
same connexion, some of the extraordinary misstatements of 
the " Reply," by error or design, as the case may be, in mat- 
ters where error was quite inexcusable, and should observe the 
manner, in which arguments, and prejudicial conclusions, are 
built upon these false premises. 

I may cite, as one instance, the absolute invention of a 
material fact, in the history of the probate proceedings, re- 



829 



specting an appeal from the decree allowing Mr. J. Wright 
Boott's will ; — [Ante, Ch. 3.] as another, the wilful misstate- 
ment, if it be not a series of ridiculous mistakes, respecting 
the difference between simple and compound interest in Mr. 
Boott's guardianship accounts ; — [Ante, Ch. 6, 24.] or I may 
refer to some astonishing pretensions, founded either npon 
the grossest misstatements, or upon the most egregious blun- 
ders, in figures, and processes of simple arithmetic, leading 
the reader, who reposes faith in Mr. Lowell's computations, 
instead of adding or subtracting for himself, into a totally 
false view of material points in the case. [Ante, Ch. 25, 26, 
39, 46.] 

These are such startling instances of fundamental mistake, 
or misstatement, as no reader will be prepared to believe of 
Mr. Lowell, in matters of this nature, until they are shown 
to him too clearly for question. I ask the reader, therefore, to 
look at them, and at the use made of them in the "Reply;" 
and to consider, at the same time, the arrogant pretence, rest- 
ing on so very slight a foundation, of utterly discrediting so 
humble an opponent as myself, as a person too inaccurate to 
be trusted in the plainest statement of fact. 

But I rather prefer to invite a reconsideration of the false 
averments and denials, evasions, and suppressions, of the "Re- 
ply," in matters bearing most directly on the main points of 
this controversy. 

I begin with the misstatement of the substance of our for- 
mer correspondence, and the evasive character of that corre- 
spondence itself, on the part of Mr. Lowell. [Ante, Ch. 8.] 

I proceed to the manner in which the " Reply" seeks to 
avoid the just effect of Mr. Lowell's proved testimony at the 
inquest, by charging me with tampering with five respectable 
witnesses, to corrupt their testimony ; [Ante, Ch. 10.] and by 
charging them and the magistrate, as well as me, with collu- 
sion and unfairness ; [Ante, Ch. 12.] and by pretending that 
I had purposely omitted to call certain other witnesses, lest 
I should " elicit the truth,'" [Ante, Ch. 9, 13.] although the 
statements of those persons, as printed in the " Reply," 
neither contradict, nor essentially modify, the testimony of 



830 



the witnesses whom I did call, comprising every membdf 
of the coroner's jury, except Mr. Lowell's own brother-in-law, 
omitted from motives of delicacy to him, but not without 
an invitation to Mr. Lowell to produce that witness himself, 
if he pleased. [Ante, Ch. 11, 13, 14.] 

Shall I refer to the manner in which '' the coroner's 
statement" is printed, when it is produced as evidence for 
Mr. Lowell, with the suppression of a material part, tending 
greatly to impair the weight of its authority? [Ante, Ch. 13.] 

Shall I cite the positive denial of the fact, now directly 
proved by the coroner himself, that Dr. Putnam was put upon 
the jury at Mr. Lowell's suggestion? [Ante, Ch. 11.] 

Or, shall I recall the attempt to impute mistake to the ju- 
rors, in their recollections of Mr. Lowell's testimony respect- 
ing accounts and matters of business, by suggesting that they 
may have probably confounded his testimony with that of 
some other witness; when no other witness was examined, 
except Mrs. Lyman and the female domestics, who testified 
to nothing which had the remotest relation to these matters 
of business and account, testified to by Mr. Lowell alone. 
[Ante, Ch. 12.] 

Or, shall I specify the pretence of a bar, both in honour 
and law, to all inquiry into the truth of the account, which 
Mr. Lowell first prepared for Mr. Boott, and then persuaded 
him reluctantly to adopt, and afterwards cited, behind my 
back, as proof that I had made false charges, against Mr. 
Boott, of mismanagement in his capacity of executor? The 
bar set up, it will be remembered, is the fact of the allowance 
of this account by the judge of probate, W^A my assent ; 
and yet, it has been made manifest that the account was so 
allowed and assented to only upon a compromise, which 
waived, and expr'essly excluded, an examination of the ac- 
count, and was coupled with a refusal to adm,it its correct- 
ness, although it was allowed to pass, on condition that Mr. 
Boott would resign his trust. And I may specify, in the same 
connexion, the denial, by implication, that there was any such 
compromise in the case, notwithstanding the clearest proof of 
it by Judge Warren, through whom the compromise was 



831 



made, — a witness, not only miimpeached, but commended, in 
the " Reply," for the fairness of his report of that transac- 
tion. [Ante, Ch. 16.] 

I may, at least, point to the remarkable sophism, which 
seeks to persuade the reader that this account does not really 
claim for Mr. Boott the sum of $25,000, as a debt due to him 
from the estate, but claims a debt of $3700 only, and a mix- 
ture of $25,000 of Mr. Boott's private property with that of 
the estate, in certain stocks held by the executor, although 
these allegations are contrary to the direct averment of the 
account itself, contrary to the understanding, at the time, of 
every party concerned in the compromise, and repugnant to 
the fact that the debt was paid, as a debt of the estate, out 
of the proceeds of the mansion-house, and that the stocks 
were all transferred to his successor in the trust as specific 
property of the estate. [Ante, Ch. 18.] 

This may be followed by a reference to the singularly bold 
assurance, that the account, in question, contains a full and 
true exhibit of all the executor's receipts and payments, 
without regard to the effect of a voluntary release from the 
heirs in 1833 ; [Ante, Ch. 21.] and to the still bolder pre- 
tence of impeaching the verity of Mr. Boott's written state- 
ment, in 1830, of all the property then held for himself and 
his father's estate, by suggesting that the value of this memo- 
randum, as evidence of such a fact, depends, wholly, on my 
reminiscences and explanations, notwithstanding that every 
syllable of its contents is shown to be oisewAiexe, admitted, in 
the course of the '^ Reply," item by item, and that no other 
property is indicated, or even suggested, as being in the pos- 
session of Mr. Boott. [Ante, Ch. 21.] 

Let me again advert, in this connexion, to the audacious 
assumptions, and to the authoritative declarations of certain 
arithmetical absurdities, whereby the pretended assets of Mr. 
Boott, in 1830, are grossly exaggerated, and his actual liabili- 
ties apparently much reduced, so as to mislead incautious 
readers into a very false estimate of his real position. [Ante, 
Ch. 25, 26, 39, 46.] 



832 



And, then, let me ask the reader to look at the evidence of 
positive misstatements of a different description, in plain 
matters of fact, personally known to Mr. Lowell, and quite 
material to the merits of the controversy between us ; as, 
for example, the positive averment, that, at the time of our 
agreement, in May, 1831, respecting stocks pledged to him 
by Mr. Boott, Mr. Lowell kneio nothing of ikfr. Booths af- 
fairSj except what I told him! [Ante, Ch. 30.] 

Or, as another example, I may cite the charge against me 
of a cruel misrepresentation, in declaring that Mr. Boott, after 
paying a debt of $21,000 to Mr. Sturgis, had reduced his 
debt to Mr. Lowell only $5000, in thirteen years, when Mr. 
Lowell, by addijig the Sturgis debt, which he had bought 
without my knowledge, to the debt previously due to him- 
self, of which I was speaking, says the truth is, " that Mr- 
Boott, reduced his debt to me, $26,000, during those very 
thirteen years!" [Ante, Ch. 36.] 

Or, for still another example, I may cite the charge against 
me of another Avilful misrepresentation, by the printing of a 
word in Italics, for the purpose of leading my readers to be- 
lieve that Mr. Boott, at one time, desired to resign his care of 
the family property, — as the fact very plainly was, — whereas^ 
it is represented by Mr. Lowell, that he wished only to assign 
his private interest in the iron foundry ; and the ''^ Reply '^ 
attempts to palm off that falsehood upon its readers, by pre- 
tending to refer, in proof of it, to a letter, of which the ma- 
terial part, distinctly disclosing the truth, is suppressed, while 
another part, capable, by itself, of that false construction, is 
quoted in terms. [Ante, Oh. 32.] 

Indeed, I must refer, generally, to the evidence of repeat- 
ed misrepresentations, perversions, and suppressions, in the 
^'' Reply," of letters, and parts of letters, of Mr. Kirk Boott^ 
directly contradicting the averments, for which it pretends to 
appeal to those letters, and even to cite passages, which, separ- 
ated from their context, may bear the false meaning as- 
cribed to them. [Ante, Ch. 22, 23, 28, 32, 47, 48, 50, m.\ 

So, I may refer, under this head, to the declaration,, in 
those bold terms of defiance which seem to belong to imde- 



833 



niable truth, that Mr. Boott's position would have been per- 
fectly impregnable^ if he had been willing to avail himself 
of the release from the heirs in 1833, and could have conde- 
scended to state an account, beginning, at that date, by charg- 
ing himself with the full amount of the trust funds required 
by his father's will ; whereas, it is perfectly apparent t]iat an 
account, truly stated upon that principle, must either have 
left Mr. Lowell's debt unprovided for , or must have exposed 
the fact, which the present account conceals, that this debt 
is, in effect, charged upon the estate, and paid out of the es- 
tate's property ; and when it is equally apparent that the 
form of account, actually adopted, assumes a rule of valua- 
tion of the stocks, which makes a nearer approach to an ap- 
parent accounting for the whole trust property than any other 
that could have been plausibly devised, consistently with 
providing for the payment in full of the debt due to Mr. 
Lowell. [Ante, Ch. 37.] 

I may also refer to the remarkable concealments, both in 
the account and in the '' Reply," of facts peculiarly within 
Mr. Lowell's personal knowledge, which are quite material 
to the main issue, and necessary parts of that history, which 
the author, under his sense of " duty to the memory of Mr., 
Boott,^^ professes to give, '' of such facts, within my own 
knowledge, as may elucidate the matters in controversy." 
[L. p. 22.] 

Let me point to the evidence of his probable knowledge, 
and certain means of knowledge, of the true ownership of 
more or less of the stocks, which he took in pledge for pri- 
vate loans to Mr. Boott ; — [Ante, Ch. 39.] to his concealment 
of a material fact, concerning the reduction of the capital of 
the Boston Manufacturing Company, while he is charging 
me with a mistake, or misrepresentation, on that very point ; — 
[Ante, Ch. 40.] and to his concealment of the great fact, that 
he had himself received, and applied to the payment of prin- 
cipal and interest due to him from Mr. Boott, upwards of 
$60,000 of the income of the property, held in trust for Mrs. 
Boott, while he is denying that there was any misappropria- 
tion of the trust funds, and pretending to claim that a small 

105 



834 



portion of the income, admitted to have been so applied, 
(but admitted as if that portion were the whole that was so 
applied,) was the private property of Mr. Boott, and, there- 
fore, properly applied to the payment of his debts, although 
this claim of a portion of the income, as being Mr. Boott's 
private property, is rested on a principle so utterly absurd, 
that I can not see how any reasonable man could believe in 
the honesty of the argument. [Ante, Ch. 43.] 

I may point, also, to the concealment, when he is professing 
to state the terms of the settlement, which he made for Mr. 
Boott with his partners, Messrs. Lyman and Ralston, of the 
important fact, afterwards incidentally disclosed, that an 
original share of the personal estate of Mr. Boott, senior, 
exclusive of the particular trust funds, in which the heirs had 
a reversionary interest only, was estimated at $20,000 ; while 
the account, and the whole argument of the ^' Reply," are de- 
signed to create a belief that such a share was less than 
^10,000, and it is, in fact, distinctly declared, as Mr. Lo- 
well's opinion, that Mr. Boott overpaid the heirs, when he 
paid them that sum ; [Ante, Ch. 49.] and, in this connexion, 
it should not be forgotten, that Mr. Lowell has in his posses- 
sion the receipts of such of the heirs as actually received a 
sum of $10,000, expressing^ as I aver in my own case, and 
believe in the other cases, that it was only a payment on ac- 
county and that he conceals and suppresses this evidence. 
[Ante, Ch. 19, 46 to 49.] 

I may specify, further, his concealment of the fact of Mr. 
Kirk Boott's large interest in the successful speculation at 
Chelmsford, afterwards Lowell, while he is denying that 
Mr. Kirk Boott ever had means sufficient to account for the 
settlement of so large a loss in trade, as he says I had sug- 
gested. [Ante, Ch. ^^.^ And I, certainly, can not omit to 
specify his total concealment of the connexion of Boott &> 
Lowell with the trust funds, held by the executor, when 
it is clearly proved that a large part of the stocks, held 
specifically by the executor as an investment for those trusts, 
was transferred by him, as executor, to the house of Boott 
& Lowell \ that the stocks, so transferred, were afterwards 



835 



sold, and converted into money, by Mr. Lowell himself; 
and that the proceeds, so far as any account of them can be 
conjectured, were suiFered, finally, to come out as investments 
in the pfivate name of Mr. Boott, and certainly were not 
replaced by Boott & Lowell in his name as executor. [Ante, 
Ch. 56, 58.] 

Nor should I omit Mr. Lowell's evasions, on the subject of 
his having made up for Mr. Boott the account of 1844 ; — 
[Ante, Ch. 58.] or his denial of the fact, that Mr. Boott for a 
long time refused to adopt it, and the clear proof, from Mr. 
Lowell's own lips, that Mr. Boott did so refuse. [Ante, Ch. 
59.] 

And shall I not remind the reader of the evasions, and false 
suggestions, and positive misstatements, of the " Reply," on 
the subject of the secret signing of my name, as trustee, to a 
release, and of the use of that instrument in the probate court, 
to obtain an allowance of the account ? — [Ante, Ch. 60.] of 
the want of explicitness on the subject of the time and man- 
ner of Mr. Lowell's reception of Mr. Boott's last letter ? — [An- 
te, Ch. 62.] of the denial of all interest in the result of the 
inquest, and of any personal motive to prevent a verdict of in- 
sanity ? — [Ante, Ch. 63,] of the pretence that I had fair warn- 
ing from Mr. Lowell respecting his alleged opinions on that 
subject, and respecting the course he intended to take at the 
inquest? — [Ante, Ch. 64.] of the pretences of disinterested 
and friendly motives towards me, and towards others of the 
family, in the course which he in fact pursued ? — [Ante, Ch. 
65.] and of the constant asseverations by Mr. Lowell, that he 
had not shown, or read, Mr. Boott's last letter to any one, in 
connexion with the unquestionable proof that he had, never- 
theless, shown or read more or less of the letter to several 
persons, on repeated occasions ? [Ante, Ch. 66.] 

But, it would be in vain to attempt to recapitulate all the 
instances of untrue statement, or disingenuous concealment, 
or deceptive suggestion, which I have had occasion to notice, 
in the course of my remarks on the " Reply ; " although I 
have noticed a part of them only. 



836 



If any reader of this summary doubts, — and I expect that 
many will be slow to believe, — the truth and justice of the 
inferences above stated, I can only ask him to look at the 
chapters referred to in support of them, and to see, for himself, 
and candidly to consider, the evidence, on which they rest. 
If he desires, or is willing, to inform himself, fully, of the 
merits of this controversy, and of the false character of the 
'^ Reply," I know not how he is to do so at less pains than 
by a perusal of the foregoing pages. 

There may be some points, now first suggested, and demand- 
ing explanation, which, possibly, Mr. Lowell may satisfactorily 
explain by new evidence, unknown to me. I shall be glad 
if he can succeed in doing so. But there are other points, 
fundamental in this controversy, and seriously affecting Mr. 
Lowell, which I have been driven, by the desperate char- 
acter of his publication concerning me, to prove against him, 
and which, in my judgement, can never be cleared up fur- 
ther than they have been ; for the evidence of them is com- 
plete, and all the explanation, which there was to give, the 
^^ Reply " professes to have given. 

Of these the reader must judge ; and, if any thing more is 
to come, in the way of explanation, I think the public will 
have a right, hereafter, to look for some further evidence of 
material facts than Mr. Lowell's own confident assertions, 
promulgated in the style of the '' Reply." Mere audacity of 
statement, dressed out for popular efiect, will hardly bear 
repetition. 



